Journal Analele Banatului N.S. Archaeology-History

Andrei-Cătălin Dîscă

Situri și descoperiri de epocă romană din împrejurimile Potaissei (IV). Date noi și clarificări privind topografia siturilor de pe teritoriul comunei Tureni / Roman Sites and Discoveries Around Potaissa. (IV). New Data and Clarifications Regarding the Topography of the sites from Tureni parish

Jan. 1, 2020

Abstract

In 106 A.D. the kingdom of Decebalus was conquered by the roman emperor Trajan and upon its ruins was created the Roman province of Dacia. In about one century and a half the newly created province was so deeply transformed, that when Dacia was abandoned by the Roman administration around 275 A.D., the material culture dominating this area was the Roman one. These transformations are well illustrated by two roman sites located several kilometres northwest of the junction between the Arieș and Mureș Rivers, namely the Roman town of Potaissa and the legionary fortress of Legio V Macedonica. In the area where these two sites are located, only a small indigenous settlement is presumed to have existed prior to the Roman conquest. Nonetheless, at the end of second century A.D., both the town of Potaissa, and the legionary fortress reached their peak, making this area of the heist importance for Roman Dacia. For this reason, these two sites were intensely investigated by the scholars over the last decades. In contrast with these sites, the large majority of the numerous rural settlements which developed around the abovementioned town and fortress were investigated to a much lower degree. In the current stage of research there are lacking essential data about these settlements, as for example: their exact locations, dimensions and archaeological inventories. To improve the current stage of research it is necessary to sum up the information from the literature, to conduct new field surveys in this area, and to create accurate maps with all the sites and discoveries. These are the goals of a project that started a couple of years ago and envisaged all Roman-Era sites around Potaissa. Starting with 2019 the results of this project have been published in a series of studies, the present study, dealing with the Roman age sites from Tureni parish, belonging to this series. The parish of Tureni is located between the Roman urban centres Potaissa and Napoca, along one of the most important roads of Dacia, the one connecting the Danube and the northern limes of the province. Over the decades were identified several Roman sites in this area, in addition to the already mentioned road, in the literature being indicated two possible watchtowers and several rural settlements and villas. These statements are supported by the volume of the discoveries, on the one hand, and by the location of these discoveries along one of the main arteries of the province, on the other hand, although, in the current stage of research, the topography of the Roman-Era finds from Tureni is rather poorly known, as most of the discovery spots are not located with precision in the field. In order to decide the degree to which the statements in the existing literature still stand, over the last years I have performed a series of field surveys aimed at identifying and mapping the spots with discoveries. This initiative has indicated that these spots form eight consistent clusters where the finds consisted of masonry traces, pottery, tools, and even coins and inscriptions, located as follows: three clusters on the territory of Ceanu Mic village, one cluster on the territory of Micești village, one cluster on the territory of Mărtinești village and two clusters on the territory of Tureni village. The Roman road mentioned in this area crosses the territory of both Ceanu Mic and Tureni villages.