Exquisitely crafted gold, silver and bronze objects will go on display at the Louvre museum in Paris this week, giving visitors a rare glimpse of the ancient Thracian culture that produced them. Many stories still remain untold about this refined civilisation whose citizens included Orpheus, the mythical son of a Thracian king, and legendary gladiator Spartacus who led an uprising against Rome. Today, ‘ancient Thrace is most famous for its unique goldsmithing works’, Bulgarian exhibition commissioner Milena Tonkova told AFP ahead of Tuesday’s opening. One of the exhibition highlights is the Panagyurishte ritual beverage set — the most prized possession of these ancient people who inhabited the Balkan peninsula from the 2nd millennium BC to the 3rd century AD. Made of 23-carat gold, it consists of a phial, an amphora with centaur-shaped handles and seven rhytons, and drinking vessels carved in the form of women’s and animal heads, with a total weight of six kilos (13 pounds).

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