Bulgarian archaeologists have added a throne with an upright phallus on it to their exciting collection of finds from the rock sanctuary of Perperikon, near Kardzhali in southern Bulgaria.

Top archaeologist Nikolay Ovcharov, who unearthed the four-legged throne on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, explained that the phallus symbolizes the prelude to a holy marriage. The find is dated to the fourteenth century.

Perperikon, a trove of buried treasures, also yielded a golden coin, which is believed to have belonged to a Byzantine emperor. It has never been used and archaeologists say it has been stored in a basin.

It was just last week that Ovcharov showed the press two unique ceramic figurines of a cobra and dragon heads unearthed at the rock sanctuary of Perperikon, near Kardzhali in southern Bulgaria.

The city of Perperikon has been inhabited since around 5000 BC, while a nearby shrine dedicated to Orpheus, near the village of Tatul, dates back to 6000 BC and is older than the Pyramids of Giza.