A team of the National Museum of History under the guidance of Dr. Ivan Hristov have succeeded in determining during the reign of which Thracian king the largest temple on the Balkans, located under a mound, was erected.
In the summer of 2009 the team took samples from a ritual fire on which stone gifts for the goddess Hestia had been placed. The ritual fire was in the very center of the Chetinyova Mound under tons of earth. The radiocarbon dating analyses of the samples were done in the laboratory of Dr. Bernd Kromer in Heidelberg (Germany). They show that the ritual fire was burning after 358 BC. At the same time the temple was erected simultaneously with the mound. Dr. Ivan Hristov comes to a conclusion that the temple in the Chetinyova Mound and the nearby Thracian ruler’s residence under the Kozi Gramadi peak were built by the Odrysian king Amatokos II (359 – 351 BC),on the grounds of the results from the laboratory analyses compared with the analyses of the events occurred in Thrace after 358 BC. The family’s coat of arms of the dynasty of king Amatokos was a double – axe (labrys). The labrys was discovered on some objects in the region of Starosel and on scores of coins.
The cult center in the village of the SrednaGoraMountains was supposed to be built by king Sitalkas (445 – 424 BC).
The above – mentioned objects as well as other interesting monuments in the territory of Starosel, the town of Strelcha and in the village of Krastevich existed during the reign of king Teres II (351 – 341 BC) too. It is clear that an important political center of the Thracians was established on the southern slopes of the SashtinskaSrednaGoraMountains in the 4th century BC. This center was destroyed during the campaign of Philip II, King of Macedon, in 342 / 341 BC. The so – called ‘Sacred Road’ to the temples of Starosel has also been reconstructed by the archaeologists of the National Museum of History. They intend to continue solving the secrets of the SrednaGoraMountains. A new book of Dr. Ivan Hristov is yet to come. It will be published and retell the story about the Temple of the Immortal Thracian Kings in the Chetinyova Mound.
