The Rousse Regional Historical Museum is one of the 11 regional museums of Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

. It acts within the Rousse

Ruse Province

Ruse Province is a province in northern Bulgaria, named after its main city - Ruse, neighbouring Romania via the Danube. It is divided into 8 municipalities with a total population, as of December 2009, of 249,144 inhabitants....

, Razgrad

Razgrad Province

Razgrad Province , former name Razgrad okrug) is a province in Northeastern Bulgaria, geographically part of the Ludogorie region. It is named after its administrative and industrial centre - the town of Razgrad...

, and Silistra

Silistra Province

Silistra Province is a province of Bulgaria, named after its main city - Silistra. It is divided into 7 municipalities with a total population, as of December 2009, of 127,659 inhabitants....

 regions. The museum occuipies the building of the former Battenberg Palace, previously a local court, built 1879–1882 by Friedrich Grünanger

Friedrich Grünanger

Friedrich Grünanger was an Austro-Hungarian architect who worked primarily in Bulgaria.Born in Schäßburg in Austria-Hungary , Grünanger studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna architecture school between 1877 and 1879, under Friedrich von Schmidt...

.

The Rousse Regional Historical Museum was established in 1904. Its basis are the archeological collections of Karel and Hermenguild Shkorpil, as well as of the naturalist Vasil Kovachev, which were gathered in the "Knyaz Boris" men's high school of Rousse.

The museum holds approximately 140,000 items, including:

• prehistoric pottery and idol plastic arts
• the Borovo treasure of the 4th century BC (a ritual wine set, gold-plated silver)
• the finds of excavations of the antique Danube castles Yatrus and Sexaginta Prista, and of the medieval Bulgarian city Cherven
  Cherven
  Cherven may refer to:* Cherven , an important medieval fortress of the Second Bulgarian Empire* Červień , a city in Belarus sometimes transliterated as Cherven...
  
  
• a collection of medieval frescoes
• a collection of exhibits of traditional lifestyle
• a collection of urban clothing, china, glass, and silver from the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century
• personal belongings of notable figures from the struggle for national liberation
• a numismatic collection
• a collection of bones from prehistoric mammals, including a unique lower jaw of a Mammuthus rumanus
• a bronze helmet from 4th–3rd century BC, suggestedly belonging to one of the soldiers of Alexander the Great. The helmet was contributed in August 2006 by the Bobokovi brothers, major shareholders of the Prista Oil
  Prista Oil
  Prista Oil is a Bulgarian company headquartered in the city of Rousse and mainly engaged in the production of 150 kinds of motor oils and industrial lubricants, as well as their distribution, transport and storage, cleaning petroleum pollution and the production and recycling of car batteries.The...
  
   company. The time and place where the helmet was found was not publicly revealed.

The museum features seven full-time exhibitions, three of them being open-air:

• the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
  Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
  The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo are a group of monolithic churches, chapels and monasteries hewn out of solid rock and completely different from other monastery complexes in Bulgaria, located near the village of Ivanovo, 20 km south of Rousse, on the high rocky banks of the Rusenski Lom, 32 m...
  
  
• the Medieval city of Cherven
  Cherven (fortress)
  The stronghold of Cherven was one of the Second Bulgarian Empire's primary military, administrative, economic and cultural centres between the 12th and the 14th century...
  
  
• the Roman
  Ancient Rome
  Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
  
  castle of Sexaginta Prista