Journal Analele Banatului N.S. Archaeology-History

Alexandru Szentmiklosi

Dumitru Țeicu

Cercetări de arheologie urbană. Reflecții privind orașul Timișoara în secolele XVII-XVIII / Researches of Urban Archaeology. Aspects Regarding the Development of Timișoara in the XVII-XVIIIth Century

Jan. 1, 2017

Abstract

For a long time, the researches regarding the urban development of Timisoara during the Ottoman period based, especially, on the Austrian cartographical documentation from the 18th century, as well as on the Turkish chronicles and on the studies based on them. Since 2006, the archaeological rescue excavations have brought major contributions to the knowledge of the urban history of Timișoara. The most important archaeological investigations were executed between 2011 and 2013–2015. During these years, there were investigated both areas within the historical centre of the city, and the external suburbs of the Ottoman town („Palanca Mare” and „Palanca Mică”). A premiere for the archaeological research was the uncovering of the fortification system north to the fortress confirming both the historical information concerning the reparations done to the fortress, and the cartographical information. Into the archaeological trenches executed in the Union Square („Piața Unirii”), there was uncovered just the base of the rammed earth rampart that formed the curtain wall of the fortress during the Ottoman occupation, as well as the defensive ditch. According to Sigismondo de Prato, the curtain wall of the fortification was a „modo hungarico” type of construction. In addition, a premiere was the uncovering of the second defensive line of the fortress of Timișoara that was situated north to the curtain wall of the fortress. The archaeological researches in the Sergent Constantin Mușat Street revealed the existence of a defensive ditch doubled by a wooden palisade, represented in the maps from the beginning of the 18th century. The archaeological researches within the urban perimeter of the town have pointed out an agglomeration of wooden dwellings lined up to the streets. At the very beginning, the streets were paved with tree branches, and later from oak trunks. Beside the houses, ones endowed with basement, and probably with a floor, there were also pit-dwellings in the suburbs of Timisoara during the Ottoman period. The information referring to the town water sources, mentioned by the historical sources, were completed by the historical researches that uncovered aqueducts made of ceramic pipes linked one to the other. These aqueducts plead for existence of a complex hydro technique system in connection with a tanker supplied with help of a hydraulic wheel. A last issue caught by he archaeological researches within the perimeter of the fortress of Timisoara and of the two suburbs illustrates the multiethnic and confessional aspects of the town. The world of the dead coexists with the world of the alive through the emplacement of the necropolis in the middle of the town and of the suburbs. At the beginning of the 18th century, there were also necropolis situated out of the external suburbs of Timisoara. After the conquest of Timisoara by the Habsburg Empire, the town cemetery was moved outside the fortress wall, on the western part of the town.