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One of the oldest known uses of gold appears to be in Bulgaria, from a site that is called Varna Necropolis or Varna Cemetery, which dates to around 4600 BC.<ref>For detailed information about the Varna Necropolis, see: Ivanov, Ivan Simeonov, and Mai︠a︡ Avramova, eds. 2000. Varna Necropolis: The Dawn of European Civilization. Treasures of Bulgaria 1. Sofia: Agatʹo Publ.</ref> The site is a burial ground were a number of gold artifacts were found to be in clear burial contexts associated with human skeletonsa variety of individuals. Surprisingly, out of the more than 200 graves found, many of them contained gold and other metal finds (primarily copper; Figure 1). This indicates a society that had already developed a strong affinity toward gold and it became a status object for many members of society. However, we also begin to see that not all individuals were treated equally. One individual seemed to have far more gold buried with him, with objects including a gold mace, jewelry, and even a penis sheath made of gold (Figure 12).

[[File:Sofia - Symbolical Burial from the Varna Necropolis.jpg|thumbnail|Figure 1. Example of one of the Varna Necropolis graves.]] [[File:Or de Varna - Nécropole.jpg|thumbnail|right|Figure 12. One the earliest gold graves found, A burial of a high status individual at the site of Varna Necropolis, where ; this individual stands out from among the high status individual is buried with graves and seems to have a substantial amount of goldcompared to other graves.]]