Museum of Mosaics (Devnya)

Worth a detour

Devnya is a chemical town most people drive past, and underneath one building on its edge lies the floor of a late Roman house from Marcianopolis with its mosaics still in position. The rooms add up to something over 1,400 square metres; three mosaics are shown where they were found and the rest were lifted for conservation. Half an hour, and a fair reason to leave the Varna–Sofia road.

Story

Background

Marcianopolis was one of the larger Roman cities of the lower Danube provinces, and it stood here because of the water — the karst springs that still come out of the ground at Devnya in quantity. The house under the museum is known as the House of Antiope, after the subject of its best floor, and was built in the late third or early fourth century.

Excavation began in 1976, and the decision that makes the place worth visiting was taken then: rather than lifting everything and shipping it to Varna, they built the museum over the dig. You walk around a house, not a display case, and the proportions of the rooms do more work than any label could. The mosaics that were removed were taken up for conservation rather than convenience.

It is about thirty kilometres west of Varna, just off the road towards Shumen, and it takes half an hour. One practical warning: the domain that appears against this museum in most online directories has lapsed and now points at an unrelated commercial site, so do not trust the hours you find there.