The exhibition “Fake (f)or Real? A History of Forgeries and Falsifications", a project of the European Parliament implemented by the House of European History in Brussels, is visiting the National Ethnographic Museum of BAS until 20 October 2024. Vice President Iliana Iotova opened the exhibition which presented examples of forgeries from the European Middle Ages to the present day. "This exhibition is not addressed to the past, it is extremely topical nowadays because we have not yet found the ways to fight fake news, disinformation, lies, how to distinguish the truth from half-truths," the Vice President said in her address and thanked the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with the Ethnographic Museum of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and its director, Prof. Vladimir Penchev, [...]

An archaeological team led by Prof. Dr. Lyudmil Vagalinski (NAIM-BAS) discovered on July 3, 2024 a well-preserved statue in the ancient city of Heraclea Sintica, near the village of Rupite, municipality of Petrich. According to an initial estimate (the front part of the sculpture is still hardly visible), it represents the god Hermes and was carved from a block of marble in the II century AD. The statue survived a violent earthquake at the very end of the IV century after which it was hidden in a defunct Roman canal because of tensions between pagans and early Christians. Christianity was declared in 380 to be the only permitted religion in the Roman Empire. The statue will be on display at the Petrich History Museum.

The "Alphabet. Language. Identity" International Cyrillic Forum with the participation of scientists from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has been opened by President Rumen Radev at the National Palace of Culture. The Bulgarian alphabet, education and culture and the Slavonic script are deeply embedded in our state and institutional framework, the President said. Thanks to their strength and beauty, Bulgaria has been built as a country of the spirit which thousands of years ago became one of the cultural centres of Europe, Head of State Rumen Radev said. The two-day event was initiated by Vice President Iliana Iotova and is a continuation of the 2022 international forum on the Cyrillic alphabet "... And we have given something to the world.” In her opening speech, Vice [...]

The "3D data on cultural heritage through three-dimensional, automated, scientifically based digitization" project was launched at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum - BAS. The research focuses on the study and safeguarding of Bulgarian traditional dance through the latest achievements of modern digital technologies. For the first time in the world, data on the movements of a group of chain dance (khoro) players, bearers of traditional knowledge, will be captured and documented using inertial sensor systems. Among the main objectives of the project is the modeling and implementation of an Internet of Things (IoT) based prototype of a 3D spatio-temporal motion data digitization system. It is envisaged to create a "Standardized Protocol for the Ethical Conduct of 3D Digitization of Group [...]