IVAYLOVGRAD, BULGARIA—La Brújula Verde reports that a Thracian temple decorated with a relief thought to depict three nymphs and the mother goddess Cybele has been found at the site of Balak Dere, which is located in southeastern Bulgaria near the Arda River. The temple was built in the third century A.D. Ivaylo Kanev of Bulgaria’s National Museum said that it seems people continued to conduct pagan rites at the temple into the middle of the fifth century, after they had been outlawed by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in A.D. 392. The building is about 49 feet long and features three rooms linked by doorways. The largest room held an altar, the middle is thought to have been used for sacrifices, and the third may have served as storage for offerings left by worshippers. A water channel running around the entire building also suggests that it was used as a nymphaeum, or a shrine to the nymphs, Kanev said. A burned layer indicates that the temple eventually succumbed to fire. To read about evidence of secret rites for Cybele that archaeologists have uncovered inside a house at Aphrodisias, go to “Put On Your Best Face.”
