Votive offerings from the sanctuary by Mezdra (an attempt at classification).

The paper discusses the different categories of votive offerings from the 3^rd century AD pagan sanctuary by Mezdra that came to light during the excavations in 2005-2012. It aims at elaboration of a detailed classification of the finds of the kind, which could be applied while working with similar material from other antique cult places. Based on their nature and functional purpose, the votive offerings from the sanctuary are distributed into 10 major groups. The attribution of a particular item to one of these also depends on its semantic and symbolic contents. The analysis of the votive offerings makes it possible to broaden the circle of deities worshipped in the discussed sanctuary. The number of divine addressees is unusually great. The ethnic and social composition of the dedicators is rather mixed, too. Besides its location along an important and intensively used in Roman times road (the one from Oescus to Serdica), the significance of the sanctuary must have also greatly contributed to that. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]