(SOFIA) - Bulgaria chose a UNESCO-protected heritage site, the Madara Rider rock relief, as a symbol of the country to be pictured on its euro coins, in a ceremony televised live on Sunday.

The 60-square-metre (645-square foot) relief, carved on a 100-metre-tall (330-foot) rock near the eastern town of Shumen, represents a horseman thrusting a spear at a lion lying at his horse's feet, with his dog following.

The monument dates to around AD 710 and has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1979.

It is already carved upon the tails side of the Bulgarian lev coins.

Over one million Bulgarians voted in the year-long campaign to propose the symbol of their country.

The Madara Rider won the final vote Sunday to four other symbols, including the cyrillic script, which became the third official script in the European Union when Bulgaria joined the bloc in 2007.

The other choices were the Bulgarian oil-bearing Damascus Rose; the Rila Monastery, another UNESCO World Heritage site; and the Tsarevets fortress in Bulgaria's old capital, Veliko Tarnovo.

In October, Bulgaria's central bank won the right to spell the name of the common European currency as "evro" in the way it is pronounced in Bulgarian and spelled in the cyrillic alphabet.

Bulgaria's central bank has announced plans to join the eurozone in 2010 but soaring inflation is likely to put its target date off to 2013-2014, according to a recent report by the analytical unit of UniCredit Group.

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