Devnya Museum of Mosaics: Roman Marcianopolis, hours, tickets and what to see nearby

The Devnya Museum of Mosaics (Музей на мозайките, Девня) stands on the foundations of a late Roman villa of ancient Marcianopolis, about 31 km by road west of Varna (OSRM). Inside you walk over floor mosaics where they were found, the best known being the head of Medusa on Athena’s shield. According to Devnya Municipality, the museum is open 10:00–16:00 daily from May to September and on weekdays only from October to April; an adult ticket costs €4.09. Pair it with the Stone Forest, 11 km away, for an easy half-day from Varna.

What was Marcianopolis?

Devnya lies on the site of Marcianopolis, a Roman city that Emperor Trajan named after his sister Ulpia Marciana after the Dacian wars ended in 106 (Wikipedia). Coins minted in the city show that by the late 1st and early 2nd century it was a large military, administrative and cultural centre. In the 3rd and 4th centuries it was a bishop’s seat and the capital of a Roman province, which the municipality calls second in size and importance only to Philippopolis (Plovdiv).

Emperor Valens used the city as his base during his war with the Goths in 366–369. The Huns of Attila destroyed it in 447; it was rebuilt under Justinian and finally ruined by the Avars in 614–615. Excavations in today’s Devnya have uncovered the amphitheatre, parts of the city walls, cemeteries, temples, houses and public buildings. The Gothic historian Jordanes recorded a legend that Trajan founded the city at the springs after a servant of his sister dropped a golden vessel into the water and it floated back up, which he took as a sign of a god in the spring (Devnya Municipality). For how all this fits with Odessos, today’s Varna, read our history of Varna.

The museum and the Roman villa

Excavations that began in 1976 uncovered a large late Roman town house, a villa urbana, built in the late 3rd or early 4th century, the time of Constantine the Great. The museum opened over part of its foundations in 1986, designed by architect Kamen Goranov (Devnya Municipality). The house once filled a whole city block: 21 living, service and storage rooms with a total area of 1,402 m² were grouped around a stone-paved courtyard with a well and a limestone colonnade. The museum building covers the western part; the eastern wing and the courtyard remain in the open, and a Roman street runs under the building (Wikipedia).

Five rooms and the portico had multicoloured floor mosaics. Three are shown in situ, in the rooms where they were laid; the others were conserved and moved onto new bases. They are made in the opus tessellatum and opus vermiculatum techniques from small cubes of marble, limestone, fired clay and coloured glass in 16 colours.

Which mosaics will you see?

• Gorgon Medusa. The museum’s emblem covers the 8 × 8 m floor of the dining room: Athena’s shield with the severed head of Medusa, meant to keep evil away from the household. The municipality notes that Medusa’s gaze seems to follow you wherever you stand.
• Satyr and Antiope. In the bedroom (4.40 × 5.60 m), Zeus disguised as a young satyr seduces Antiope. It carries the Greek labels ΣΑΤΥΡΟΣ and ΑΝΤΙΟΠΗ.
• The Abduction of Ganymede. The reception hall (13.40 × 5.60 m) is the largest room with a mosaic; its central panel shows Zeus’s eagle carrying Ganymede to Olympus, so far the only mosaic of this subject found in Bulgaria.
• The Seasons. Most of this floor in the women’s room was destroyed in a later rebuilding, but a cockerel pecking grapes, birds, a pair of Roman sandals and the bust of Autumn as a young woman survive.
• Pannonian Volutes. A geometric mosaic in four colours found in 1949 in another building in the east of Marcianopolis, possibly an early Christian basilica (Devnya Municipality).

The gold treasure and other finds

The original gold hoard of Marcianopolis is on display: 20 solidi struck in the name of Theodosius II (402–450), found in 2019–2023 by the team of archaeologist Hristo Kuzov in a late Roman building burned during the Hun invasion of 447 (Devnya Municipality). It is the second coin hoard from Devnya: in 1929 a farmyard dig turned up more than 100,000 Roman silver coins (about 350 kg), now kept by the archaeological museums in Sofia and Varna.

Also look for the finds from an unlooted Roman tomb discovered in 1993 in the Himik quarter (late 2nd to early 3rd century): tableware with relief decoration and small bronze bear and lion heads that once decorated a folding iron chair, probably a magistrate’s. Models of Marcianopolis, its amphitheatre and the villa, local pottery and lamps, gold jewellery and a sundial from the villa complete the display.

Opening hours and tickets

	Individual	Groups of more than 10
Adults	€4.09	€3.58
Pensioners, children, students	€2.05	€1.53
Visitors with a disability certificate	€2.05	€1.53
Family ticket (up to 3 children under 18)	€8.18	–
School pupils with a teacher (school year)	–	€1.02
Guided talk	€5.11	€10.23

Hours: May–September 10:00–16:00 with no day off; October–April 10:00–16:00, closed Saturday and Sunday. Prices and hours are from the municipal page published on 27 July 2025 and checked on 2 November 2026. Call +359 519 34440 or +359 882 699 948 before a group visit or a public holiday. The museum is No. 10 of the 100 National Tourist Sites, so bring your booklet for the stamp. Compare with the city’s museums in our Varna museums hours and prices.

How do you get to Devnya from Varna?

• By car: about 31 km by road from central Varna, roughly 25 minutes (OSRM).
• By bus: line 14 links Varna and Devnya, with a stop in Beloslav on the way (Visit Varna). The timetable published by Devnya Municipality on 24 June 2026 for the Devnya–Varna route (lines 14, 14A and 28) lists departures from Varna at 07:00, 07:30, 08:00, 09:30, 10:30, 11:30, 12:30, 13:30, 14:30, 15:30, 16:30, 17:30, 18:30, 20:00 and 21:30 on weekdays; from Devnya the last weekday bus leaves at 20:00 (timetable). Devnya bus station is about 2.4 km in a straight line from the museum (OpenStreetMap), so ask the driver for the nearest stop. Carrier phone: +359 885 907 697.

What else is there to see in Devnya?

The Devnya springs are the largest karst springs in Bulgaria and the source of the Devnya river. They rise in several groups at the foot of the Golyam Kayrak hill, keep a steady temperature of about 18 °C and, by the municipality’s figure, deliver 2,952 litres per second. Since 1954 most of them have been captured for the Devnya factories and the water supply of Devnya and Varna; today only the Magic Spring flows freely.

In the village of Kipra, a late-19th-century house holds the municipality’s ethnographic collection of about 200 objects, including costumes and the “Kamila” mask worn by New Year mummers (Devnya Municipality). We found no official opening hours, so ask the museum in Devnya before driving there.

Combine it with the Stone Forest and Provadia

The visitor area of the Stone Forest (Pobiti Kamani) is about 11 km by road east of the museum (OSRM), on the way back to Varna; some of its other groups lie near Devnya’s Povelyanovo quarter. Mind the days: in November the Stone Forest is open 10:00–17:00 but closed on Monday and Tuesday, and in December only with a prior reservation (Varna Regional History Museum). With the museum closed at weekends from October to April, Wednesday to Friday is the safe choice in November.

Heading west instead, Provadia and its Ovech Fortress are about 30 km by road from the museum (OSRM). Devnya Municipality also runs one bus to Provadia (10:00 from Devnya, back at 12:00), which is too tight for a visit, so this leg is best done by car. A full loop of Varna, the Stone Forest, Devnya and Provadia fits into one day with a car.