---
title: "A Thracian Temple Yields a Bronze Ring With Four Barbed Hooks, and Nobody Knows Why"
description: "At a possible first Odrysian capital near Vasil Levski, the find could be a lamp hanger, outsized fishing gear or neither"
author: "Nate Ledger"
published: 2026-10-18T20:06:49Z
modified: 2026-10-19T03:49:20Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/a-thracian-temple-yields-a-bronze-ring-with-four-barbed-hook-359b35
language: en
tags: ["archaeology", "history", "bulgaria", "thrace", "mystery", "europe"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# A Thracian Temple Yields a Bronze Ring With Four Barbed Hooks, and Nobody Knows Why

*At a possible first Odrysian capital near Vasil Levski, the find could be a lamp hanger, outsized fishing gear or neither*

By Nate Ledger · October 18, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/a-thracian-temple-yields-a-bronze-ring-with-four-barbed-hook-359b35

## In brief

- A bronze ring with four barbed hooks was found in the entrance chamber of a temple near Vasil Levski, Bulgaria
- Excavation leader Kostadin Kisyov suggests it held hanging lamps or was large fishing gear; neither idea is confirmed
- The settlement dates mainly to the 6th–5th centuries BC and covers more than three hectares, per Karlovo Municipality
- Kisyov links the site to Teres I as a possible first Odrysian capital, but its ancient name and status are unproven
- Work has repeatedly stalled for lack of funds; Karlovo’s mayor has pledged continued municipal support

Archaeologists digging an ancient Thracian city near the village of Vasil Levski, in southern Bulgaria, have found a bronze object inside a temple. So far the most honest thing anyone has said about it is that they don’t know what it is. [Arkeonews reported](https://arkeonews.net/mysterious-bronze-mechanism-discovered-in-2500-year-old-thracian-temple-in-bulgaria/) that it is a ring carrying four hooks, each with a carefully shaped barb pointing backward, like the barb on a fishing hook. It turned up in the pronaos, the entrance chamber of the temple. The dig is led by Associate Professor Kostadin Kisyov, director of the Regional Archaeological Museum in Plovdiv, who [told bTV](https://btvnovinite.bg/predavania/tazi-sabota-i-nedelia/nepoznati-za-arheologijata-ruini-otkriha-zagadachen-bronzov-mehanizam.html) that his team had never come across anything like it.

Kisyov has two theories, and he presents both with appropriate caution. The first is that the ring held hanging lamps, which could have been made of clay, bronze or glass. It’s a tidy idea with one gap: you need chains to hang lamps from hooks, and no chains have been found. The second is fishing. The barbs really do look like fishing barbs, but the hooks are unusually big. The settlement sits near the Stryama, a tributary of the Maritsa, which is a fairly small river for gear that size. So if it was fishing equipment, Kisyov suggests, it was probably meant for bigger water: the Maritsa itself, the Danube or the sea. Neither theory has been confirmed.

![A weathered bronze ring with four curved hooks rests on a stone slab, casting shadows resembling a fish and an oil lamp.](https://rews.cc/img/cb58e7b4b6de3c3c756977498978d4d6ee5b79a3.webp)

I enjoy this, because the usual archaeological reflex goes the other way. Find a strange object in a temple and the easy move is to call it ritual and stop there. Here the opposite caution is on record: an object found in a temple did not necessarily have a ritual function, and more study is needed to tell whether it was part of the building’s fittings or something else entirely. I’ll also point out that a barb is basically a one-way valve. It lets things go on easily and makes them hard to get off. That’s exactly what you want for a fish. It’s also, I suppose, not a terrible feature for a lamp hanging over a room full of people.

Anyway.

## The city around it

The object is a nice puzzle, but the bigger claim concerns the place it came from. The settlement dates mainly to the sixth and fifth centuries BC. It sits on a mountain terrace in the southern foothills of the Balkan Mountains and has monumental stone buildings, defensive walls and religious structures. Karlovo Municipality says the complex covers more than three hectares and includes a fortified citadel and early Thracian temple architecture, along with traces of an older Thracian sanctuary from the ninth century BC. Not much of it has been dug yet. An [earlier profile of the site](https://archaeologyinbulgaria.com/ancient-thracian-city-near-vasil-levski-vasil-levski-karlovo-bulgaria/) put the whole area at about 35 decares, with only around 1.5 decares excavated. That’s roughly 4 percent. The bTV report says that even the citadel, about 5 decares, has been only partly explored.

![An engraving depicts excavated stone ruins on a grassy hillside overlooking wooded valleys and layered mountains.](https://rews.cc/img/9b7bf6360c6f447ead9ae91b4947540d7d2922b4.webp)

The site is sometimes called the “Golden City of the Thracians.” The name is modern, and it comes from the roof tiles. Kisyov says they were finished in layers. In the bTV account, that means a red engobe at the bottom, black varnish stripes over it, and on top a golden coating made with a mineral pigment that he identifies as mica. He says it was a technique the Thracians of that period didn’t know. Some of the tiles have held up remarkably well after about 2,500 years. Other finds point toward the Greek world: massive stone blocks, building methods familiar from Greek settlements, and imported amphorae from Chios, Samos and Thasos. In other words, whoever lived here was drinking Aegean wine and using Aegean olive oil.

Then there is the claim that gives the site its name in headlines. Kisyov thinks the monumental buildings mark an early royal center, possibly connected with Teres I, the ruler credited with founding the Odrysian Kingdom and [usually dated to the fifth century BC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teres_I). In the bTV report he argues that this kind of monumental construction is characteristic only of Thracian rulers. That is an inference from architecture, though, not an inscription. The city’s ancient name is still unknown, and nobody has established that it was the kingdom’s first capital. Bulgarian archaeology has a lively tradition of arguing over [what these sites were actually called](https://rews.cc/a/perperikon-s-excavator-says-the-rock-city-s-lost-name-was-pe-600368), and this one hasn’t joined in yet, because there is no name to argue over.

## Two temples, and a funding problem

The religious buildings are still coming out of the ground. The team has found two temples with very similar architecture. Local press covered the [second temple’s discovery](https://www.marica.bg/region/karlovo/arheolozi-razkrivat-vtori-hram-v-zlatniq-grad), and it is still under investigation. Because the two are so closely linked structurally, they may have been part of one larger sacred precinct. Kisyov has suggested they could have honored different gods, but no one knows yet which ones.

![Two ancient stone buildings with red tiled roofs and dark doorways stand among trees beside a weathered stone courtyard.](https://rews.cc/img/730905394bf9117b3951e679e0af65d70522ffb4.webp)

The pace of the work is where the money comes in. According to bTV, Kisyov first spotted the ruins about thirty years ago in an old vineyard. Fieldwork began in 1996 but was often stopped for long stretches for lack of funds, and the busiest seasons were 2005 to 2008 and 2025. The other account gives slightly different dates: discovery in 1993 and regular excavation from 2005. A [FASTI excavation record](https://www.fastionline.org/excavation/micro_view.php?item_key=fst_cd&fst_cd=AIAC_1877) lists seasons in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2019. Meanwhile, bTV says about 15 houses in the village were built from stone blocks taken off the site, which is one way of putting a monument to use.

So here’s how the funding works. A dig that depends on money arriving season by season needs a story, and “possible first capital of the Odrysian Kingdom, with golden roofs” is a better pitch than “a three-hectare terrace, 4 percent excavated.” It seems to be working, at least locally. According to [Cross.bg](https://www.cross.bg/kisyov-kyki-mehanizum-1807908.html) and other Bulgarian outlets, the mayor of Karlovo, Emil Kabaivanov, recently visited the site, called the municipality a steady partner of the excavations and promised continued support. None of this makes the capital claim false. It does help explain why a mysterious bronze object is such good news for a project like this: a find that even its excavator can’t explain is a very good reason to come back and dig another season.

For now, the best evidence for the lamp theory is a chain nobody has found. The best evidence against the fishing theory is the size of the fish it would imply.