Museum of Mosaics, Devnya

The Museum of Mosaics is a museum in the town of Devnya in Varna Province, northeastern Bulgaria [1]. The museum, built on top of a large ruined Roman villa from Late Antiquity, exhibits mosaics from the Roman and early Byzantine city of Marcianopolis [1]. The museum was founded as a result of archaeological research beginning in 1976, which uncovered the House of Antiope, a Late Roman villa decorated with floor mosaics [1]. The villa was constructed in the late 3rd or early 4th century AD, perhaps during the rule of Roman Emperor Constantine the Great [1]. Constructed on the site of earlier buildings destroyed during the Gothic raids in 250–251, it was abandoned in the 7th century due to Avar and Slavic invasions [1]. Despite the rise of Christianity during the reign of Constantine, the mosaics in the House of Antiope are exclusively pagan in character [1]. They feature depictions of characters from Greek and Roman mythology such as Zeus, Antiope, Ganymede and the gorgon Medusa [1].