Introduction

The research project centred on the gold mine on the Ada Tepe in the eastern Rhodopes of Bulgaria is a cooperation between the Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology (OREA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the National Institute for Archaeology with Museum (NAIM) of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences as well as numerous other national and international cooperation partners.

Ada Tepe is the earliest identified and scientifically investigated gold mine in Europe. Its use period dates to the second millennium BCE and started around 1500. The Bronze Age miners excavated quartz rocks containing the gold by the method of fire-setting, both on the top of the hill and along its slopes. Then they grinded the quartz, and in a last stage they washed out the gold. On the hill the archaeologists have also excavated a settlement of the ancient miners. The video produced by the company 7 Reasons shows both, the processes of gold mining and extraction, and the settlement activities.

The video on the research results was also produced for the exhibition “The first Gold” at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien (KHM) opened on 7. 3. - 25. 6. 2017. The concept of the exhibition was designed in a joint effort of KHM, NAIM and OREA and curated by H. Popov, B. Horejs, G. Plattner and St Alexandrov.