Zeus Votive
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Hisarya - Archaeological team of Dr Ivan Hristov discovered a big votive relief of the ancient Father of Gods and men Zeus close to the archaeological excavations of Bulgaria's National Museum of History at the Kozi Gramadi peak in Severna Gora, close to the village of Starosel.

Director of the National Museum of History, Dr Bozhidar Dimitrov, announced the news for FOCUS News Agency.

"It is bigger than the votive slabs found so far and probably it is the central icon of the ancient temple," Dimitrov said.

A strange event took archaeologists by surprise while the votive relief was taken out. A big imperial eagle started flying over them. In antiquity Zeus was often portrayed as an imperial eagle and the younger women archaeologists started commenting that Zeus had come to see what they were doing in his temple.

The Kozi Gramadi stronghold, built in VI-V century before Christ, was a capital of a Thracian tribe, which used to live in this part of Bulgaria during the antiquity. The popular tombs close to Starosel are in fact the necropolis of the Thracian aristocrats living in the city.