Sozopol Archaeological Museum

The Archaeological Museum of Sozopol is one of the most significant and richly stocked archaeological museums on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, located in the Old Town of Sozopol, at 2 Han Krum Street, in Sozopol Municipality, Burgas Region. It is included under number 8 in Bulgaria's 100 National Tourist Sites. The museum was established in 1961, when the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church made available the building of the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius for the purpose of housing the continuously growing collection of artefacts discovered during excavations in Sozopol and its surroundings. Today the museum is accommodated in the modernly adapted building of the Otets Paisiy community centre in the Old Town, with additional halls provided by the Sozopol Cultural Centre. The exhibition is spread over several halls and encompasses more than a thousand exhibits presented in museum modules that trace the history and cultural heritage of the city and the wider region from the end of the 6th millennium BC to the 18th century AD — a span of more than six thousand years of human civilisation. The collection is structured in two main directions: Archaeology (5th millennium BC – 17th century AD) and Christian Art (17th–19th century). Among the most remarkable holdings are the richest collection of ancient Greek painted vases of the 7th–3rd centuries BC in Bulgaria; impressive collections of ancient and medieval amphorae — including a set of 120 complete specimens; stone and lead anchors and lead stocks of the 2nd–1st millennium BC; ancient marble friezes and ceramic architectural details; small terracotta figurines; and fragments of the earliest aqueduct discovered in Bulgaria, dated to the end of the 5th century BC. The historical narrative of the exhibition begins with the submerged prehistoric settlements and the Thracian fortresses of the Copper Ridge (Meden Rid), continues with the story of ancient Apollonia with its urban culture and funerary customs, and extends through the late antique, medieval, and Ottoman periods. Some of the museum's exhibits are also displayed in the Hermitage in St Petersburg and in the Louvre in Paris. Among the most outstanding individual objects in the collection is the alabaster reliquary casket in which the relics of St John the Baptist were preserved for centuries, discovered during the 2010 excavations on the nearby St Ivan Island, together with a small box bearing a Greek inscription that records the journey of the relics to the island. The exhibition is regularly updated with new museum modules presenting the latest archaeological discoveries made in Sozopol and the surrounding region.