The “oldest gold of humanity” was found in the Varna necropolis, on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast

Every year, we discover something about our history on the planet through excavations around the world. In one such excavation, archaeologists found what could be the oldest gold in the world, dating back to 4,500 BC. The gold bead found was about the size of an eighth of an inch and was found in Bulgaria. It could be the oldest processed gold ever discovered in Europe and probably in the world.

Reuters reported in 2016 that the bead predates the previous oldest gold object, the Varna Gold, which is a hoard of gold found in a necropolis outside the Black Sea port of Varna. The Varna Gold hoard was found between 1972 and 1991 and weighed about 5.8 kilograms. However, the new bead found in Bulgaria pushes the mystery back another 200 years.

Yavor Boyadzhiev, a professor at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and in charge of the excavation, told Krassimirov: “I have no doubt that it is older than the Varna gold. It is a really important discovery. It is a small piece of gold but big enough to find its place in history.”

The exact location of the excavation was revealed as a site called Tell Yunatsite near the modern town of Pazardzhik, much further inland than Varna. Boyadzhiev revealed that the settlement could be the first urban settlement in Europe as it appeared to be a sophisticated town. He believes that gold was likely manufactured on site and used in some kind of religious cult. He also believes that it was a “highly cultured society” that had people moving in from Anatolia, modern-day Turkey, around 6,000 B.C. The settlement was protected on all sides by a 9-foot-high wall, but it is speculated that the town was destroyed by invaders around 4,100 B.C.

Tell Yunatsite has been excavated since the 1970s and along with the Varna necropolis, is part of the emerging “lost” Balkan Copper Age civilization. Researchers believe the city had a well-developed trade network, industrialized metallurgical production for the first time in history, and may have even been home to the creators of the world’s earliest known writing systems.