Collective find from Panayiot Hitovo, 2nd mill. Hr.

Collective artifact from Panayiot Hitovo, 2nd millennium BC, National Museum of History, Inventory No. 45602 – 45632

The set of silver and one electron ornament was found by chance in the land of the village of. Panaiot Hitovo, near the town of. It is located in the village of Hito Hito, in the area of Omurtagh. According to the information of the discoverers, the objects were placed in a roughly made ceramic vessel (urn?), decorated probably with bouquets (?). No traces of embers, bones or other objects were seen around.

The find consists of 12 moon-shaped plates – elements of breastplate decoration, probably attached to a leather or metal chasuble, or armour, 12 bracelets with open ends, spirally wound bands and 56 pieces of hemispherical appliqués, intended for sewing to a garment.

The objects, which undoubtedly represent royal insignia, were either gifts placed in the grave of a noble deceased or part of a deposited hoard, similar to the numerous similar finds from the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age found in the Lower and Middle Danube regions and central Europe.

In both cases, they can be interpreted in relation to the ritual burial of royal signs in the ground, intended to sacralise the territory of the ruler, and at the same time, to signify his symbolic death and his new birth/renewal of power through the sacred marriage with the Great Mother Goddess.

1. Moon-shaped breast ornaments formed as a “collar” are found in images and in archaeological material from the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC. Hr. in a wide geographical range – the Middle East, Asia Minor and Egypt, the middle and upper reaches of the river. Danube, the Iberian Peninsula to the west, and the British Isles to the northwest. The closest parallels of the plates from Panayiot Hitovo have been found in the Emen and Tabash caves (dated to the Early and Middle Bronze Age) and in the Carpathian region (17th – 12th centuries BC). Approximately the same size and shape are the gold appliqués on the so-called “heavenly disk of Nebra” (1600 – 1560 BC).

2. The bracelets with open ends are made of solid silver wire with oval cross section. The objects are relatively uniform, although there are some differences in diameters, thickness of the wire and the way the ends are shaped.

3. The spirally wound plates have two small holes at the ends, and on one of them, instead of holes, a wire is drawn, formed into a small spiral. Their probable purpose is as ornaments on belts, or tiaras. Prior to their placement in the vessel, the plates were bent helically in a single plane.

4. The hemispherical appliqués are made of a thin silver plate on a matrix. There are two small sewing holes at the ends. Such objects, which served to decorate clothing, armament, horse equipment, etc., were widespread throughout antiquity. The earliest of them are the gold appliqués from grave 43 of the Varna Chalcolithic necropolis (end of the 5th millennium BC), which were sewn to the garment or fabric that covered the body of the buried.

Author. L. Konova
Translation. S. Tsaneva/L. Konova
Photos. Dimitrov

Literature:
– Konova, L. Silver treasure from the Bronze Age in the National Museum of Natural History. – The Way. A collection and scholarly articles on the life and work of Dr. Kitov. Sofia, 2003,107-120;
– Konova, L. Panayot Hitovo Hoard. In. Dimitrova / H. Popov / B. Horejs / K. Chukalev (Hrsg.), Gold & Bronze. Metals Technologies and Interregional Contacts in the Eastern Balkans during the Bronze Age (Sofia 2018) 359-363 (engl./bulg.)