A total of four antique statues were unearthed in the temple of the Phrygian Goddess Cybele in Bulgaria's coastal town of Balchik on Wednesday.

The team of the archaeologists Igor Lazarenko, Elina Mircheva and Radostina Encheva discovered two Cybele's statues and two other, believed to be statues of Aphrodite and Dionysus.

During the excavation works, there have been found also two relieves and a limestone slab with a lion embossment.

The first finding in the temple, believed to be the biggest one in Bulgaria, was discovered at the end of April last year, when archaeologists found a 30-centimeter-long marble statue of Cybele.

"The statue has no head and part of the goddess' palm is also missing," the curator of the local museum Radostina Encheva said. It emerged that a column with a Latin inscription and an architectural element with bulls' heads were discovered on the same spot.

Among the other precious findings, discovered on the spot is a 50-centimeter-high Doric column with a well-preserved inscription addressed to the Roman emperor Valerius Licinianus Licinius.

The temple's walls were at least 2.5 meters high, and the base of the building is huge, compared to other important buildings of the same age.

A huge fire or a disastrous earthquake destroyed the temple, the archaeologists believe.

Originally a Phrygian goddess, Cybele was a deification of the Earth Mother who was worshiped in Anatolia from Neolithic times. Like Gaia (the "Earth") or her Minoan equivalent Rhea, Cybele embodies the fertile earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals. Her title "potnia theron", which is also associated with the Minoan Great Mother, alludes to her ancient Neolithic roots as "Mistress of the Animals". She becomes a life-death-rebirth deity in connection with her consort, her son Attis.