Only in Museum #11

A couple of years ago I was listening to a travel podcast about Bulgaria. I was fascinated and one day I got the chance to visit Sofia. I loved the place. On the last day there, I went to the national museum which was quite some distance to go. But then I spent a lot of time there to explore everything.

I found some very interesting horns made of gold which are called Rhytons. As per wikipedia “a rhyton a roughly conical container from which fluids were intended to be drunk. It is typically formed in the shape of an animal’s head. Items were produced over large areas of ancient Eurasia, especially from Persia to the Balkans”

Rhyton

These vessels were part of Thracian treasure. Before listening to that podcast, I didn’t even know the word Thracian.The Thracians were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history. I wondered what’s the difference between Greeks and Thracians because the pottery looked like Greek pottery to me. But then I found on the internet that they influenced the Greek civilization, which can explain the similarities, although the Greeks later used that term to denote barbaric, uneducated, wild people!! I wonder.

Whatever the story, I found these gold horns to be fascinating and hence, they are the subject of today’s post.

Would be great if you would join the “Only in Museum” series by posting something you found catching your eye in one of your visits to the museum. Then create a pingback to this post by including the link to my post in yours. You can also give the link to your post in the comments section below. Also, tagging the post with “Only in Museum” and “OiM” would help all readers find these posts easily.

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