The National Archaeological Museum, in the centre of Sofia, occupies the building of the largest and oldest former Ottoman mosque in the city, originally known as Koca Mahmut Paşa Camii. The construction started in 1451 under grand vizier Veli Mahmud Pasha but due to his death in 1474 the mosque has been completed in 1494. The museum was established as a separate entity in 1893 as the National Museum directed by Czech Václav Dobruský with its headquarters in the former mosque that previously housed the National Library between 1880 and 1893.
Prehistory Hall displays a collection of items dating from between 1,600,000 BC and 1,600 BC. The collection is chronologically displayed and includes various findings from caves around Bulgaria, tools of the earliest humans who inhabited its modern territory, drawings, simple pottery, ritual items and many others.
Treasury displays grave inventory and other treasures from the late Bronze Age to late Antiquity. Two of the most well-known Bulgarian treasures are located here: the Valchitran and Lukovit Treasures. Main Hall hosts a collection of diverse items ranging from ancient Thrace, Greece and Rome to the late Middle Ages.
The medieval Section includes a gallery of medieval books, woodwork, drawings, metal objects and other items characteristic of the era.
Dryburgh Abbey on the banks of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders was founded in 1150 in an agreement between Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland, and the Premonstratensian canons regular from Alnwick Abbey in Northumberland. The arrival of the canons along with their first abbot, Roger, took place in 1152.
It was burned by English troops in 1322, after which it was restored only to be again burned by Richard II in 1385, but it flourished in the fifteenth century. It was finally destroyed in 1544, briefly surviving until the Scottish Reformation, when it was given to the Earl of Mar by James VI of Scotland. It is now a designated scheduled monument and the surrounding landscape is included in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland.
David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan bought the land in 1786. Sir Walter Scott and Douglas Haig are buried in its grounds.