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The J. Paul Getty Museum presents Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece, an exhibition that explores the cultural relations between the Thracians and their neighbors over the course of two millennia (about 1700 BCE–300 CE).
On view at the Getty Villa Museum from November 4, 2024, to March 3, 2025, the exhibition will feature over 200 objects, including skillfully crafted gold, silver, and bronze metalwork, pottery, inscriptions, stone reliefs, and other artworks reflecting Thrace and its connections to other ancient cultures in the Mediterranean and beyond.
The land of Thrace lay north of the Aegean Sea, in an area that now comprises Bulgaria and parts of Romania, Greece, and Turkey (Türkiye). With few written records preserved, much of what is known today about this culture depends on brief, often biased, accounts from ancient Greek and Roman authors.
However, archaeological discoveries made in the region since the early 20th century have yielded extensive firsthand evidence of Thracian history, culture and society. These discoveries illuminate Thrace’s rich resources and varied artistic achievements, as well as its unique position—geographically, politically, and culturally— between East and West.
“This exceptional exhibition is the first to focus on the interconnections and rivalries between the Thracians and their neighbors, especially Greece and Rome,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the Getty Museum. “For many of our visitors, this will be their first introduction to this fascinating and highly sophisticated ancient culture, which was both feared for its military prowess and cultivated for its rich artistic productions, especially silver and gold vessels. We are immensely grateful to the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture, and the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences for their partnership in making this exhibition possible; and to the other lenders to the exhibition.”
The ancestors of the Thracians, who migrated from the Eurasian Steppe to present-day Bulgaria, formed a distinctive culture by the Late Bronze Age (around 1500 BCE). Thracian tribes became known for their skills as horsemen and warriors and interacted with Mycenaean Greeks and central Europeans, influences that can be traced in the production of metalwork. Rich hoards of luxury metal vessels—treasures in a literal sense—are featured in the exhibition, including those discovered at Valchitran, Panagyurishte, and Rogozen in Bulgaria.
“The exhibition is a rare opportunity for the Getty Villa to introduce American audiences to the world of ancient Thrace—a place and culture which deserves much greater attention,” says Sara E. Cole, associate curator of antiquities at the Getty Villa Museum and co-curator of the exhibition. “The archaeological material on display, ranging from spectacular gold and silver to pottery and funerary monuments, allows us to present Thrace from a Thracian perspective, at times challenging the views expressed by ancient Greek and Roman authors.”
Thrace’s cultural and political interactions with Greece, Persia, and Rome, which shaped the region’s history and arts, is a major highlight of the exhibition. From the Bronze Age, Greeks traveled to Thrace for its rich deposits of gold, silver, and copper, establishing cities and trading posts with local Thracians. The Achaemenid Persian Empire reached Thrace in 513 BCE, subjugating tribes and leaving a lasting cultural impact, particularly in the use of gold and silver banqueting vessels. Thracians fought as mercenaries for the Achaemenid kings in the Persian Wars (492–449 BCE) against the Greeks. Centuries later, the Roman Empire expanded into Thrace, incorporating it as a province under Emperor Claudius around 46 CE. The Thracians adopted Roman customs and the Latin language while maintaining many local traditions.
Portrait of King Seuthes III, 310 – 300 BCE. Bronze, with copper, alabaster, and glass for the eyes, 12 5/8 × 11 × 11 in. National Archaeological Institute with Museum – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia. VEX.2024.2.159
Photo: Todor Dimitrov
A highlight of the exhibition are the many luxury objects found in wealthy burial mounds of the 5th–3rd centuries BCE. Foremost of these is the complete set of grave goods from the tomb of King Seuthes III at Golyama Kosmatka, discovered in 2004 in central Bulgaria. They include a spectacular bronze portrait of Seuthes, who ruled Thrace’s Odrysian kingdom from about 330 to 300/295 BCE. This spectacularly realistic and well-preserved sculpture may be the earliest monumental image of a historic Thracian individual.
Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece is co-curated by Sara E. Cole, associate curator of antiquities at the Getty Museum and Jens Daehner, acting senior curator of antiquities at the Getty Museum; Margarit Damyanov, associate professor of Thracian archaeology at the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; and Jeffrey Spier, the recently retired Anissa and Paul John Balson II senior curator of antiquities at the Getty Museum.
Complementing the exhibition is a catalogue of the same title, edited by Jeffrey Spier, Timothy Potts, Sara E. Cole, and Margarit Damyanov, exploring topics such as Thracian royal tombs, the Greek colonization of the Black Sea coast, Thracian religion, and more. On November 19 at 12 pm (PST), Getty will host an online conversation with historian Matthew Sears discussing the rich legacy of Thracian culture.
Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece is the third of the Getty Museum’s Classical World in Context program, a series of exhibitions and research initiatives devoted to the diverse cultures that interacted with ancient Greece and Rome. Previous exhibitions have included Persia: Ancient Iran and the Classical World in 2022, and Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World in 2018.
The exhibition is organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Republic of Bulgaria, and the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NAIM-BAS), with generous loans from the National History Museum of Romania, Bucharest, and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
At Getty, this exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities
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