Artifacts

A small bronze object found inside a Thracian temple in southern Bulgaria has left archaeologists with an unusually practical problem: what was it made to do? As Arkeonews reports, the object is a ring fitted with four carefully shaped hooks, each ending in a pronounced barb. It may have supported lamps, yet its form also recalls large fishing tackle—an awkward combination that has made the find one of the site’s most intriguing discoveries. A Mechanism in the temple Entrance The object was recovered from the pronaos, or entrance chamber, of a temple near the village of Vasil Levski, in Karlovo Municipality. Excavation director Associate Professor Kostadin Kisyov told Bulgarian media that his team had not previously encountered a mechanism of