The big marble statue found recently in the ancient town of Heraclea Sintica has been moved to the History Museum in Petrich.

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To begin with, Prof. Lyudmil Vagalinski, who heads the excavations, believed it was a statue of the God Hermes. “After taking a look at it frontally, it may not be from the 2^nd century, it could be dated 200 years earlier, i.e. around the first years AD and may depict a ruler or some other dignitary,” he says.

The face, the head and the nose of the statue are well preserved and you can see the expression. This, Prof. Vagalinski believes, is astonishing, as there are few such examples. The missing parts of the arms have not been found yet.

“Together with specialists from Sofia, next week we shall try to place it upright on the spot where it is going to stand so that the restorer can work around it, clean it and conserve it,” the archaeologist says.