Security at the entrance is polite but firm, with an insistence about locking up my backpack in one of the mini-lockers provided; so too is the insistence that my camera should be stowed away in safekeeping.

This is understandable. The Plovdiv Archaeological Museum has considerable treasures to guard – and only the most mischievous would suggest this also involves the museum’s occasional scuffles with the National History Museum in Sofia about the custody of the Panagyurishte treasure.

I had been urged to visit by friends who had attended the October 2010 re-opening of the museum, which now boasts not only its vast collection but also a remodelled interior that is modern, clean and bright and that welcomes non-Bulgarian speakers with information signs in generally acceptable English, especially helpful for those who might not know their rhyton from their python.

The restoration project had been essential because the museum, initially founded as a numismatic collection and operating as an archaeological museum since the 1920s, had by 1995 declined into a state of such filth and decay that the authorities shut it down.

Now it is back, with a collection of 100 000 artifacts, celebrating the rich harvest that archaeologists have found, digging around beneath a city that dates back several thousand years.

Armed with the only concession allowed to visitors in terms of photographic equipment, a mobile phone – video cameras and digital still cameras, as noted, may not be used – we gazed with fascination at the handiwork of Plovdiv’s long-gone residents, at Neolithic pots, worship masks, at some of the oldest coins found at this crossroads of ancient Thrace and latter Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman times.

I noted that by permission of an emperor, the first coins were minted in Plovdiv in the first century CE. Of all the tons that were made in the town or passed through it over the generations, Plovdiv’s archaeological museum holds 60 000 coins, a not inconsiderable number. Whimsically, I thought to myself that those in the 21st century who seek to emulate this ancient tradition by knocking off their own euro are occasionally arrested.

On to the ages of Greece and Rome, and the magnificent display of about 50 marble busts along with torsos and other work that could give any museum in South Eastern Europe a run for its money, even though Plovdiv’s collection is smaller than most. Still, any bust from that age draws the eye, curious to study the closest form we have to what the people of the time looked like – whether accurate or idealised, of course, no one will ever know.

Naturally too, a prolonged stop at the ever-fascinating Panagyurishte gold treasure, which was still there at the time of our visit. Currently, until June 19 2011, the temporary exhibition is of the Vulchitrun gold treasure, which dates from the 14th to eighth centuries BCE.

Departing, I bought a bilingual souvenir booklet and smilingly, the woman behind the counter presented me with a gift of another booklet, about one of the several archaeological digs with which the museum has been involved. As good an impression on departing as on arriving.
 
The Plovdiv Archaeological Museum is open from Tuesdays to Saturdays from 10am until 6pm, with ticket sales ending 30 minutes before closing. Tickets are five leva, with admission free for the physically challenged and children younger than seven. Address: Suedinenie Square. Website: archeologicalmuseumplovdiv.org