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The Treasure of Letnitsa, Lovech Province, was found by accident in 1963 while building a cattle-shed.
The scientific inquiry has shown that this treasure is Thracian, from the 4th century BC. There were 23 silver-gilt plaquettes found of horse harness featuring a great variety of subjects, such as scenes with real and mythical animals against a certain background and enclosed in frames.
The Thracians believed in the immortality of soul, worshiped the Earth, the Sun and the Moon, and the Horse as a symbol of Sun being a deity has had its own cult. Celebrating the Earth and as a gift to gods, they buried precious vessels, jewellery or horse harnessry.
The find makes it clear that the artifacts belonged to a rich aristocrat from the times of Cotys, the
King of Odrysians, dated approximately as I-IV century BC.
The silver-gilt plaquettes are unique both for the Thracian lands and the whole of Europe. They are of various forms and feature a lot of different mythological scenes. The most interesting one of them is the scene of the sacred marriage of a Thracian ruler with the Mother Goddess.
When issuing the famous Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture the very scene from the plaquettes of the Letnitsa Treasure was used for a book cover, because it is recognized that this is the most eloquent scene in the ancient art about the beliefs of the Indo-Europeans.
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