The Balchik municipality has expressed interest in buying back the plot of land on which the remains of the ancient temple of Kibela (the ancient goddess Cybele) had been discovered. A buy-back however, would take a significant chunk out of the municipal budget, Bulgarian news agency (BTA) quoted Balchik mayor Nikolai Angelov as saying.

Angelov said the municipality had offered the current owners the chance to exchange the site for a larger plot but the offer had been rejected. The two sides could not reach an agreement about the value of a possible deal, Investor.bg said.

The temple had been discovered in the spring of 2007 during excavations for the construction of an on-site hotel. The construction had been stopped by the municipality, Angelov said.

The temple for the goddess was extremely valuable and in such a good state that it deserved recognition as a world monument of culture, Investor.bg quoted Angelov as saying. The goddess Cybele is originally from Anatolia. She was a deification of the Earth Mother and has been worshipped since Neolithic times.

According to the head of the archaeological dig, Igor Lazarenko, an orthodox church and an ancient mosque were in the vicinity of the temple.

The archaeological dig would continue this spring, Investor.bg said. In the dig, eight statues of the goddess had been found, along with 25 inscriptions in stone - mostly in Ancient Greek - ceramics and coins from the third and fourth century BC.