AFP
Bulgarian archeologists believe they may have found one of the most famous prophesy sites in antiquity, a temple of the Greek god of wine Dionysus, in the mountains of what is today southern Bulgaria.
"Since we began our reseach in 2000, archeological evidence that we may have found Dionysus' sanctuary has mounted," said Nikolaп Ovtcharov, the head of the archeology team.
"But this hypothesis will only be proved if we find a document that supports it," added the archeologist who has been combing through the site of the ancient village of Perperikon in the Rhodopes mountain chain.
It was built by the Thrace whose civilisation existed in tandem with those of the ancient Greeks, but who were finally overrun by the Slavs in the third century AD.
The name Perperikon was taken from the Greek word for incendiary, which archeologists see as a pointer to the sanctuary of Dionysus, the son of Zeus, and the legendary rituals of wine and fire that were performed there.
In ancient Greek history this sanctuary in the Rodhopes is as important as that of Apollo at Delphi, Ovtcharov stressed.
It is where Alexander the Great heard before he embarked on his conquest of Asia that he would be the master of the world.
It is also the place where the father of Octavius, who would go on to become Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, learnt that his son would become the leader of a vast empire. Octcharov argues that the legend of Dionysus - known in the Roman mythology as Bacchus - in fact comes from the Balkan legend of the god Zagrei.
The Roman historian Dion Cassius says his temple was situated on the border between the lands of two Thracic tribes, the Besses and the Odrisses, who fought a war for control of it in the first century BC.
It has already been proven that this border lay close to the modern day village of Kardjali, which is situated some 15 kilometres (10 miles) from the archeological site at Perperikon. The Thrace believed that the Earth Goddess gave birth to the sun and thus created the world and considered their king as the son of the earth and the sun.
It is for this reason that the palace at Perperikon was built inside a rock that juts out into the sun, says historian Valeria Foll.
Inside the palace, archeologists have discovered an oval hall that had no roof but a round altar shaped out of the rock.
The discovery matches a description by the Roman historian Suetonius who wrote that the Dionysian soothsaying rituals were performed on a round altar in a vast, roofless oval hall. The orcacle would divine the future according to how high the flame on the altar burnt after wine was poured onto it.
The site of Perperikon is dotted with hundreds of altars where ancient tribes performed rituals relating to wine, after the fashion of those practiced by the Thrace of the Caucausus, Ovtcharov said.
The site, some 20 kilometres from Kardjali contains an altar shaped like a womb. Water runs onto it from the walls and at midday a ray of sun shines onto the soil, resembling a phallus, the mythological symbol of fertility.
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