In brief
Seven items from the Municipal Cultural Institute Museum Centre in Sozopol and two from Burgas’s Regional History Museum will inaugurate the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s "Across Wine-Dark Seas: Art and Identity beyond Ancient Greece" on December 20, 2026. Their display runs through April 11, 2027, alongside more than 180 pieces from the wider Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea area. The shipment of the Burgas pieces was completed early November, but the seven Sozopol items are still pending transport, leaving parts of the program unsettled.
Burgas, on the Black Sea, announced on November 13, 2026 that nine archaeological artefacts from ancient Apollonia Pontica—today’s Sozopol—would be featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibition "Across Wine-Dark Seas: Art and Identity beyond Ancient Greece." The show opens on December 20, 2026, and will run until April 11, 2027.
Seven of the objects belong to the Municipal Cultural Institute Museum Centre in Sozopol, while the remaining two are part of the Regional History Museum in Burgas, Sofia‑based Museum Director Dimitar Nedev told BTA. "The Black Sea is represented in the exhibition exclusively through Apollonia Pontica, with artefacts from the collections of the museums in Burgas and Sozopol," he added, describing the inclusion as a significant acknowledgement of the region’s archaeological heritage and of the ancient city’s role in cultural exchanges along the western Black Sea coast.
The Burgas contributions consist of a relief of the goddess Cybele, dated to the first half of the fifth century BC and found in the waters of Sozopol Harbour, and a marble kouros of a young man, dated to the sixth or early fifth century BC and discovered on Atia Peninsula. The latter is currently the oldest marble statue held in a Bulgarian museum. Both pieces left Bulgaria on November 12, the museum team said. Preparations for the transfer took three days, with specialists packing the stone sculptures, placing them in specially designed transport crates and preparing ramps for loading them onto a truck.
The seven ceramic vessels awaiting transit are associated with the religious practices of ancient Apollonians and have yet to be dispatched to the United States. Their expedition is pending, and therefore the full composition of the display remains incomplete until the items arrive.
The exhibition will assemble more than 180 works of art and archaeological artefacts from the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea region, western Asia Minor, North Africa, Egypt, Sicily, Sardinia and the Apennine Peninsula. Contributions come from major museum collections, including the Louvre in Paris, the Vatican Museums, the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, the National Archaeological Museum in Taranto, the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade, the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion in Crete, the Archaeological Museum of Samos, the Archaeological Museum of Cordoba and the Albacete Museum in Spain.
While the Metropolitan Museum has confirmed the inclusion of the Burgas relics, the status of the Sozopol ceramics remains unconcluded. The exhibition’s schedule and precise itinerary are still to be finalized pending the arrival of those seven items. Additionally, the specific curatorial decisions regarding the arrangement and emphasis of the Apollonia pieces have not yet been detailed by the museum’s curatorial team.
In sum, the nine Apollonia Pontica artefacts promise an intriguing look at a city that once bridged Greek culture with the peoples of the western Black Sea coast. Yet the timing of the Sozopol ceramics’ transit, the final inclusion list, and the curatorial narrative are all matters that remain open as the exhibition approaches its opening in December 2026.
