Exploring Roman Dacia through Archaeology!
A new week has begun at the Roman Villa from Oarda-Bulza. The sun is not shy to hide behind the clouds, and we are not shy to start work.
The guardian of the villa showed up in the end.
The end of the week found us washing and sorting the artefacts, sharing smiles and good cheer on this day.
The legends says that in a corner of Romania, it exist a village called Oarda, where it could be rain and clouds all over around, but no way above our little field where we’re working.
Even prayers didn’t worked…
The dirt became like cement, but no problem of that because our enthusiasm grew more and more as we dug layer after layer. The sunbath made our skin much more resistant and the resources of vitamin D will remain even for the winter!
And after a hard working week, even our mascot needs a break!
The first week was the best! Although the hungry sheeps stole the start line, we managed to overtake them and arrive early on the site. The winners started a quest of “who’s gonna rise the tent first?” because the warmth of the sun is not waiting for us to drink our coffee. After the start, we were greeted by the many discoveries left by the people that once lived on these lands.
Welcome back to the Roman villa at Oarda-Bulza! This year, we continue our journey in the countryside of Apulum. The weather is promising and the team is ready to work.
The campaign would not be the same without a mascot, this being our cat friend.
Sarmizegetusa Ulpia Traiana, Museum, Densuș Church, and the Round Church of Geoagiu
This excursion post is going to be mostly photos that we took during our excursion. Anything that I can tell you about these places we visited, is online. I highly encourage that you read about Sarmizegetusa Ulpia Traiana, it’s associated museum, Densuș Church and the round church of Geoagiu.
Even better, when (not if) you visit Romania, you can visit these amazing places yourself!
I will tell you one beautiful story that you will not find online. When we stopped by the round church of Geoagiu, the man in charge of the property showed us around. He had received his Ph.D in history in Cluj and had researched the history of Geoagiu during the Middle Ages among other places in the area. He moved back to Geoagiu after a few years and traded his academic life for a career running the church’s non-profit organization.
The church property holds summer camps for children and when we were visiting there was a group of kids there for guitar camp. The man let us climb up to the top of the round church, which I remember from when I was there years ago.
Anyways, we went into the main sanctuary where there are still services and a very old foot-crank operated organ could still be operated. The man was more than happy to let some of us (mainly Hannah) play the ancient organ because in his mind (and this is the lovely part) this space should be alive with music and it’s history should be shared and celebrated in the present.
It was really lovely to meet someone who wanted to share and experience Geoagiu’s history with us and I do not think I will ever forget that experience.
This was the theme of the day, we started our excursion at the Roman capital of Sarmizegetusa Ulpia Traiana and the museum, and ended up at Medieval churches built with repurposed Roman ruins and building materials. It was really amazing, the churches were beautiful and living, breathing pieces of history where today, visitors can see the trends and cultural norms affecting the buildings over the years.
Also, Hannah rocked the organ. Watch it on Aurel’s facebook page.
Archaeology Rocks!
But seriously, there were rocks everywhere.
When you start a new archaeology project, the first season goes by very fast. Everyday feels like a week and a week feels like a day. Time means nothing to a bunch of people obsessed with documenting the chronology of history.
Week three was no exception. Not only did we need to start thinking about wrapping up our excavations for this season, but there was also so much more work that needed to be done.
I’ll take a minute to give a shout out to the machines of ARVP that made this excavation speedy and possible to finish on time.
Typically, after a layer of earth (stratum) is removed from the excavation unit, you have to document the new stratum with photos, hand drawings, and meticulous notes about the soil color and texture, the objects within the soil, where it is on an X, Y, and Z plane on the earths surface, and so on. The drawings alone can take an hour or more. You can imagine that this would slow down the amount of actual excavation that gets done to a grinding halt until the documentation is completed.
But, Erin, why do you even need to do all of that? Can’t you just take a quick photo or jot down some notes and keep going?
The simple answer is no. The short answer is archaeology is a destructive science. Once it’s excavated, it can’t go back the way it was found. If we don’t do the best job we can through documentation, then we are no better than looters and robbers.
So, how do you make this process faster? Cue machines.
This year, Matt and the UBC team brought a lot of fancy, high-tech field robots with them, including photogrammetry equipment, a differential GPS, and Panasonic Toughpad tablets for taking digital fieldnotes and taking quick photos of strata.
Yes, the battery lasted almost all day and no, they did not shut off if they got overheated because they have fans in them.
If I may brag for a moment, we were running Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Access, and more on these babies in the summer heat all day long and they did not waver.
The differential GPS base and rover use satellites to position themselves and figure out where they are on our spinning blue marble. Once the dGPS knows where it is, we can collect points in other places like where artifacts and features are discovered. This means that we can understand the relationship between objects and structures even after they have been removed during excavation. Yes, the future is here.
If it wasn’t for our little E.T.’s and Wall-E’s, this field season would not have been nearly as successful.
Exploring Dacian Fortresses!
During the second week of excavations, the team traveled to Costești-Cetățuie and Sarmizegetusa Regia. One night at dinner, Matt took a poll of the types of Sunday excursions people would be interested in. The options were: lovely hikes through the Orăștie mountains, Roman sites and museums, and quaint Medieval towns.
Spoiler alert: we did all of these things! But, going for a hike through the mountains and visiting Dacian fortresses seemed to be at the top of everyone’s list.
Our first stop was to Costești-Cetățuie, a late Iron Age Dacian hillfort. It was conservatively a twenty minute walk up the mountain from where Crișan, our bus driver, dropped us off. It was a Sunday morning, many of us were thinking, “it’s going to be so nice to stretch our legs, see some nature, and feel the cool breeze of the morning in our faces!”
We did see some nature.
Mainly, we were all drenched in sweat by the time we got up to the top. Our casual jaunt through the forest turned into walking up an incline equivalent to a staircase for 20 minutes and trying to appear ‘in shape’.
The view from the top was worth every sweat-soaked minute.
The fortresses itself is comprised of several large structures that are exposed today. This includes the foundation of a tower to watch for signals from other fortresses and for enemies. This fortress was likely governed by a Dacian elite.
Some of the structures were better preserved over time than others.
One of the most interesting aspects of Costești-Cetățuie was the cyclopean masonry, a technique used in the Mediterranean to construct enormous stone blocks for building structures. It is likely that the elite Dacians either hired Greek architects to travel up to Dacia and orchestrate the building of the fortresses, or Dacians were sent down to Greece to learn construction techniques and brought knowledge back with them.
Either way, it is fascinating to be able to observe these types of interactions through what remains of these impressive fortresses.
Our second stop was to Sarmizegetusa Regia, the late Iron Age Dacian capital. Lucky for us, one of the current directors gave us a personal tour! They are continuing with excavations this summer and we got to see some of the excavation units the team was working on. Side note: Marina, one of Mariana’s students who worked at ARVP, left early to go excavate at Regia. I can only imagine how freaking amazing that was!
Just as we were making our way back to the bus, the sky opened up and it torrentially down poured. So instead of cautiously walking down the slick stone path to the bus, most of us were sprinting to the bus. It is unclear if we got more wet from runnning, thus increasing the speed at which the rain was falling onto us, or walking and increasing the number of raindrops hitting us. Either way, we were all pretty saturated.
But, Erin, you were just complaining about how hot and sweaty you were at Costești-Cetățuie. Wasn’t this a sweet relief? A blessing in disguise?
Look, you make a great point. The answer is no.
What I did enjoy was taking the bus down the hill to the Babeș-Bolyai University archaeology lodging where students had prepared us hot soup, coffee, and polinca (local plum brandy). It was the best thing we did not know we were getting.
Oh, and of course, no part of our adventures would be complete without dogs. Here’s an adorable doggo living at the archaeology lodge with the Sarmizegetusa Regia crew.
If we look hard enough, maybe we’ll find it.
Well I wish it was!
Let me begin my three-part apology as to why you don’t know how the last two weeks of our excavation went because I didn’t tell you! This is in summary what my life was like during that time: I was wrapping up the first season at ARVP, traveling to Cluj and then home to Indiana where I immediately turned around and started a new job at Ball State University as their archaeologist!
Not only did I not finish updating you on what we did the last two weeks on site, I did not even unpack my toiletries until yesterday.
Also my car died on the highway on the way to my first day at my new job.
But this isn’t about me. This is about you wanting to learn more about archaeology in Roman Dacia.
What I propose for the next few weeks is that I will be finishing up blog posts and sending them out intermittently. You can read at your leisure what happened this summer and start to get excited for 2020!
Thank you for your patience, I’m excited to turn out some high-quality content for you all and some really fabulous photos of archaeology and the people we love!
On Tuesday, July 20th, a press conference was held at the National Museum of the Union in Alba Iulia. Mariana and Matt discussed our the progress during this first season and what is to be expected going forward. For more information, click here!
Week two was a week of mystery for both areas. Starting with area A, there was a combination of intact wall foundations of the Roman villa home and large rubble piles. It was unclear what caused the major destruction and debris layer in area A. Soon enough Medieval pottery began to surface and it looked like Medieval people ruin the party again! It is likely that centuries after the abandonment of the villa, Medieval people moved into the area and used the stones and building materials from the villa to build new settlements. The same occupation popped up in the Mithraeum III Project where Late Antiquity and Medieval period homes and artifacts were discovered in the Mithraeum.
Area A also had some lovely Roman abandonment layers, including a tile pile, an area where roofing tiles collapsed after people stopped living in the villa house.
We got stuck with some rain during the second week of excavation. Fortunately, it did not last very long, but area B did end up with an amazing time-lapse video (courtesy of Ailsa McFadyen) as the fog and clouds move across the foothills and mountains surrounding ARVP.
Onto area B! Area B was a chronological catastrophe for quite some time. After the first week of excavation, the team discovered several foundation walls. Based on the aerial photography, there seemed to be two clear building phases with a large single room building and a smaller building with two or three rooms. Our task was to understand which building was first and which was second.
Surely, this would be an easy enough endeavor. Spoiler alert: it was not as clear cut as the aerial photography suggested. Not only could we not figure out which foundation walls were built first and which were built last, but it also appeared that there were three different building phases. Week two left area B saying “WHATTT??”
Another reason that Area B is the best area at ARVP is that the team decided to buy our own tent. Yes, I admit it, I am working in Area B, but I do not have a bias. Empirically, area B is better than area A. The fact that we bought a tent to shade us during the hot afternoons just proves how wonderful we are.
Week two ended with a fun trip to late Iron Age Dacian fortresses, Cotești-Cetățuie and Sarmizegetusa Regia!
Apulum Roman Villa Project