The Rogozen treasure is a Thracian silver treasure discovered at the beginning of the year 1986 in the village Rogozen, the municipality Vratsa. It is the largest treasure found in Bulgaria. It consists of 108 bottles, 54 small pots and three cups – in total 165 silver objects of high quality, among which some of them are made of gold. Because of the style differences and of the constructions of the vessels, it is considered that they are made in different times and different places, which makes that the dating of the treasure to be quite vast: from the end of the 6th century until the middle of the 4th century b. Chr.
The village Rogozan is situated at 43 kilometers north from Vratsa in the middle of the Danube plain between the rivers Ogosta and Iskar. The treasure was found in the center on the village on the vacant lot, used for many years as a vegetable garden.
The discovery was accidental. In 1985, Ivan Dimitrov, while digging the channel for the sanitary installations with his mini-tractor, found in a whole a beautiful collection of silver buried at only 50 cm depth. In this collection it is discovered the fact that there are 42 decanters, 22 bottles and a cup, which were delivered to the collaborators of the museum from the city of Vratsa.
The study of the site convinced the archeologists that the treasure was buried in extraordinary circumstances and it was, most likely, divided in more groups. After another search it was opened a second whole where there were found 100 silver vessels buried at 40 cm depth. We had 86 bottles, 12 jars and two glasses. Therefore the total number of objects from Rogozen reached to 165 silver vessels of 54 jars, 3 cups and 108 bottles.
It is supposed that these objects where owned by the local commander clan and they were collected throughout many years – the Vth century before Christ in the years 40 of the IVth century. In some of the vessels there are also engraved diverse inscriptions which teach us the name of the Thracian commanders and the names of the silversmiths who made the vessels.
The decoration of the found articles described more scenes from the Thracian mythology and from the Ancient Greece religion, a proof of the powerful relation and of the cultural exchanges between the ancient Greeks and the Thracian tribes.
The treasure was found in two parts. The first part, which is formed of 65 articles, was accidentally discovered in the autumn of the year 1985 by Ivan Dimitrov in the courtyard of his house. Over a period of 3 – 4 months, Ivan didn’t report the treasuries found because of the fear at thinking the fact that in his courtyard there will be excavations performed by the archeologist and the cultures will be destroyed. But, at the beginning of the month January 1986, he took the objects to the mayor from that period Boris Dramkin from the village Rogozen. The mayor understands that this fact is indeed a very valuable discovery and reported immediately the treasure found to the Regional History Museum – Vratsa. The archeologists Bogdan Nikolov, Mashov and Plamen Ivanov react immediately and in the same courtyard at 4 meters distance from the first bouquet discovered another 100 articles. The treasure from Rogozen was declared to be the discovery of the century.