An Outlay of the National History Museum in Bulgaria
On May 5th 1973 The National Historic Museum was opened to the public for the first time. On that date the museum, which is located in Sofia, became Bulgaria’s largest museum. Its purpose is to showcase the history of Bulgaria from the Paleolithic period up until now. It has over 650,000 pieces and was moved to a larger location in 2000. The current location has 15 different halls and includes 4 floors. Here are some of the permanent exhibitions, which account for only 10 percent of the entire museum:
The extinct species exhibit is the most popular permanent exhibition. It houses both worldwide extinct species, such as the Caroline parrot, and species extinct in Bulgaria, such as the bearded vulture, steppe viper and monk seal.
The “Costumes of the Past” exhibition took Bulgarian artist, Vera Macheva more than 20 years to compile and is a superb representation of miniature costumes over the years.
The “cultural valuables” is one of the most rare collections with priceless marble statues, icons and precious metals dating back to the 4th century BC.
The outdoors ink drawings, sketches and watercolors of wildlife in Bulgaria are exhibited in “paintings of Assen Ignatov”.
New specimens are being added to the collections on display. The museum houses the largest team of researchers and scientists. Some of the active collections are:
More then 17000 bone fragments and bone fossils, 1900 dis-articulated skeletons, 1000 egg specimens and 80 rare nests are included in the bird collection.
The main part of the ichthyologic collection has well over 270 reptile species and 80 amphibian species. It also includes 5000 specimens of Bulgarian herpetofauna and over 300 specimens from other countries.
The mammal collection is the most recent addition it includes over 2500 skeletons, over 100 mounted skins and over 250 specimens preserved in alcohol.
The floral collection is composed of more than 5000 preserved samples of lichen like Bozhana Zhelyazova and more than 1200 Bulgarian preserved plants.
The rock and mineral collection has over 1400 specimens from around the world. Just a few of the kinds of items in the collection are more than 1500 rocks, 40 gems, meteorites, and meteorite cast-offs.
Coral and mollusks from the Lower Cretaceous of Bulgaria with more than 30000 specimens of invertebrate fauna fossils, 80 species of mammal fossils and 4500 species of sub-fossil mammals are found in the fossil collection.
Crustacea specimens, animals from the Aegean Sea and non-insect invertebrates from the Balkan Peninsula are contained in the invertebrate collection – some specimens in the collection have yet to be identified.
Cecelia Owens loves travel and she does freelance writing for the top South African travel comparison website, BestFlights.co.za offering Flights to Sofia.
