Arheologie

L’archeologo del XXI secolo non vive più di solo studio e scavo. Oggi la moderna ricerca impone di affiancare al lavoro in cantiere e ai libri in biblioteca modi sempre nuovi di indagare, comunicare e gestire l’antico. Bastano un po’ di fantasia, versatilità e intraprendenza per dare vita, da archeologo, alle attività più disparate. Come hanno fatto i 34 professionisti che si raccontano in Archeostorie: c’è chi cura un museo e chi gestisce un’area archeologica, chi narra il passato ai bambini e chi lo “fa vedere” ai ciechi, chi usa nel racconto le tecnologie e i linguaggi più diversi e persino i videogame; c’è poi chi ricostruisce l’antico in 3D e chi lo sperimenta dal vivo, chi organizza i dati di scavo e chi li rende disponibili per tutti; c’è chi scrive sui giornali e chi parla di archeologia alla radio o in tivù, chi realizza documentari e chi racconta l’archeologia sui social network; c’è ancora chi punta sul marketing e chi sul crowdfunding, chi fa dell’archeologia un’esperienza per tutti e chi difende le bellezze da furti e scempi. C’è anche chi studia e scava, e nel libro descrive la vita vera di studio e scavo al di là dei miti e dei sogni.
Il risultato è un manuale non convenzionale che offre spunti originali e concreti agli archeologi del futuro in cerca di reali possibilità di occupazione. Una sorta di bottega artigiana dove apprendere i segreti del mestiere, o meglio dei mestieri, che un’archeologia nuova, pragmatica e ancorata nel presente può ispirare.

"Valorificarea patrimoniului etnocultural în educaţia tinerei generaţii şi a societăţii civile", conferinţă ştiinţifică internaţională a tinerilor cercetători (4; 2019; Chişinău). Valorificarea patrimoniului etnocultural în educaţia tinerei generaţii şi a societăţii civile : Materialele Conferinţei Ştiinţifice  Internaţionale a Tinerilor Cercetători Valorificarea patrimoniului etnocultural al Republicii Moldova în educaţia tinerei generaţii şi a societăţii civile, Ed. a 4-a, 30 octombrie 2019 / ed.: Adrian Dolghi, Natalia Grădinaru; com. şt.: Victor Ghilaş [et al.]. - Chişinău : S. n., 2019 (Tipogr. "Notograf Prim"). - 288 p. : fig. color, n. muz., tab. Antetit.: Inst. Patrimoniului Cultural. - Texte : lb. rom., engl. - Rez.: lb. engl. - Referinţe bibliogr. la sfârşitul art. şi în subsol. - Apare cu sprijinul Min. pentru Românii de Pretutindeni. - 200 ex.
ISBN 978-9975-84-105-4 (Notograf Prim).

The territorial expansion of the orders and of the colonization with western guests / of the Saxon and Szekler colonizers and the architectural configurations they adopted and disseminated is very clearly delimited in the 13th century religious landscape of southern Transylvania and in the topography of the Catholic Romanesque churches in the area. These Catholic churches built in a Romanesque style, the cemeteries that surround them, the discovery of some liturgical vessels that are specific to a Catholic population that used such goods are all part of a clear borderline between the Catholic and the non-Catholic areas. They are placed on the southern line of the royal land / fundus regius / of the Seven Seats, delimited to a significant extent by the natural frontier of the Olt River (see the map 1 and 2). The contrast is even more evident if we consider the fact that at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th centuries that fundus regius / Saxon territory became a stable and efficient military and religious frontier, having its center at Sibiu (see the map 1), as well as Bârsa Land from the second half of the 13th century, with its center at Brașov (see the map 2). From the point of view of the ecclesiastic landscape, the densest network of Catholic parish churches dating around 1200 can be found in southern Transylvania, surrounding Sibiu, a colonized area with western guests, where the largest Romanesque basilicas are to be found (Sibiu, Cisnădie, Cristian). Starting from the fourth decade of the 13th century, the monastic activities, as well as the activities of the building sites in the urban centers contributed to the spread and generalization of the stone architecture in the rural areas. Furthermore, this density grow of the network is to be remarked especially around future cities (Brașov, Mediaș, Sebeș). If during the second half of the 12th century and the first half of the 13th century the network of Catholic parish churches is not yet well developed, starting from the second half of the 13th century, especially following the Mongol invasion, this network is enriched and a generalization of the stone architecture in the rural areas is first remarked in the villages nearby the county centers (see the map 2).
The dense network of Catholic Romanesque churches in southern Transylvania in the 13th century, as well as the establishment of the two Cistercian monasteries, the two Premonstratensian ones and the distribution of the Dominican monasteries, followed by the Franciscan ones starting from the fifth decade of the 13th century prove once more that southern Transylvania was religiously a well-defined area, part of the eastern limes of Christianitas, one of the most powerful border segments of western Christianity.

During the last two-three decades, the urban archaeology in Transylvania has recorded a visible progress. Archaeological investigations have been carried through in cities such as Alba Iulia, Bistrița, Brașov, Baia Mare, Dej, Cluj-Napoca, Lugoj, Orăștie, Oradea, Sebeș, Sfântu Gheorghe, Sibiu, Sighișoara, Timișoara, Târgu Mureș and Turda. In Sibiu, the first preemptive archaeological excavation took place in 1970 and had focused open the house and residence of the town’s former mayor, Altemberger (Sibiu’s old mayor’s office). Afterwards, any archaeological campaign had stopped for more than a decade. It was in 1983 that such endeavors were making a new start once again in respect to the same gothic historical civil monument. In Sibiu, this was a year that is to be seen as the beginning of scientific and salvage archaeological research at an institutional level. Ever since, up until 2016, in Sibiu more than 100 archaeological interventions have taken place. After more than three decades of urban archaeological research and collecting information, we must emphasize the need for centralizing, for developing a chronological repertoire, a mapping of archaeologically investigated objectives, for listing the involved archaeologists, the results and various interpretations, the numerous articles, studies and monographs, as well as their abstracted interpretation. The present paper deals with the following aspects: I. Monasteries, churches and chapels; II. Medieval cemeteries; III. Town fortifications; IV. Public civil buildings (the mayor’s office); V. Houses; VI. Layout of public markets and streets; VII. Cereal storehouses; VIII. Material culture.

LIVING WITH THE DEAD.
BURIALS IN EIA SETTLEMENTS BETWEEN THE BALKANS, TISZA AND DNESTR

- ABSTRACT -

PROBLEMATICS
Burials in settlements are a particular funerary phenomenon, documented worldwide, in different eras and contexts. Archaeologically speaking, burials consist of skeletons or parts of human skeletons, in or not anatomical position, deposited in disused habitat structures (pits, dwellings). Often labelled as “macabre” findings, “atypical” or “irregular” burials, this is undoubtedly a type of treatment of the human body after death.
As this practice is often documented at the same time with the existence of actual cemeteries, the hypotheses regarding the status of the individuals deposited in the settlements are numerous. Setting aside some of the exceptional findings – such as A and B grave circles from Mycenae, which prove the special social position of the buried individuals – the human bones found in domestic context were most of the times considered to be the result of human sacrifices or burials of persons of special status: slaves, war prisoners, heretics, pariahs, convicts, etc. On the other hand, we need to take into account the ethnographic sources indicating that human societies practised numerous and complex funerary rituals, some of them involving manipulations and treatments of the body starting from the time of death until final deposition.
In this context, we can ponder upon the nature of the social and ritual mechanisms that led to the separation or dissolution of the usual limits between the living and the dead.
Within this problematic, our project sets out to draw up a list of the cases of burials in early Hallstattan settlements spread between the Balkans, Dnestr and Tisza Rivers, to analyze the respective inventory and the identified ritual gestures, compare them with similar situations from other areas and eras and confront them, in the end, with historical documentation.
SPACE AND AGE
Early Iron Age (ca. 1200/1100 – 800/700 BC) is characterized by the emergence and dissemination of iron metallurgy. This technology that was born in eastern Anatolia and neighbouring areas (Armenia and Cilicia) spread rapidly from the end of 2nd millennium BC, but especially during the so-called Dark Ages in Greece. This period was much tormented in the Aegean-Anatolian area, as the Sea People rose while the Hittite Empire and the Mycenaean civilization fell.
In the northern Balkans, at the end of the 2nd millennium and beginning of the 1st millennium BC, classic cultural manifestations of the Middle and Late Bronze Age (Monteoru, Noua, Coslogeni, Suciu de Sus, Žuto-Brdo–Gârla Mare, Cruceni-Belegiš, Zimnicea-Plovdiv etc.) come to an end and new ones take shape. Despite the emergence of the first iron artefacts, this is the peak of bronze metallurgy and of the deposition of bronze artefacts in ritual contexts.
The area we’ve selected for the study of this category of findings corresponds to the dissemination of several early Hallstattan archaeological cultures with grooved pottery (Bistreţ-Işalniţa, Gáva-Holidrady, Chişinău-Corlăteni etc.), but also with stamped and incised pottery (Pšeničevo, Babadag, Insula Banului, Gornea-Kalakača, Belozerka, Cozia, Saharna-Solonceni), which are a variation of the funerary ritual . Nevertheles, in the entire area, in various proportions, probably due to the level of the investigations in the settlements, intramuros graves were also found.
STATE OF RESEARCH
Though the first such finds were uncovered since the 50’s, an analysis thereof is rather new archaeological endeavour in southern and Eastern Europe. The known publications so far mostly approach individual finds (e.g. Gomolava, Babadag, Niculiţel, Jurilovca–Orgame, Svilengrad, Saharna, Pusztataskony etc.). Syntheses on this topic are scarce and incomplete regarding the number of finds, area and method of investigation . Therefore an interdisciplinary approach over an extended area of various contemporaneous cultural manifestations may lead to the formation of a solid documentary base for an objective interpretation of this funerary practice.
CATALOGUE OF THE FINDS
We have catalogued the finds in the area between the Balkans, Dnestr and Tisza from 53 EIA sites (broadly 12th c.-8th c. BC) with 226 contexts for human bones from at least 512 individuals.
From the 53 catalogued sites, most of them (cat. no. 1, 3-6, 10, 14, 19, 21-22, 28-30, 33-35, 37, 45-46, 51-53) were ascribed to Gáva culture, most of the information concerning burials in settlements coming from rather recent finds in the intra-Carpathian region, up to Tisza River. Other such finds are concentrated at the Lower Danube, mostly ascribed to Babadag culture (cat. no. 2, 7-9, 11-12, 16-17, 24, 27, 31, 36, 38, 41, 43); in our opinion, the site at Tămăoani can be ascribed to Belozerka culture  (cat. no. 48).  The finds from Upper and Middle Dnestr were ascribed both to Saharna-Solonceni culture (cat. no. 15, 39-40) and Černoles culture (cat. no. 20, 23, 50); the finds at Ostrovul Corbului, Gomolava and Novi Sad were included in the areal of Kalakača culture, and the finds from Sava, Karanovo and Svilengrad are probably part of Pšeničevo culture. A special place among these finds is held by the settlement from Tărtăria, characterized by Basarabi-style decorated pottery.
Most human bones contexts in settlements were found in the area of Saharna-Solonceni culture, where the site at Hligeni alone provides 86 such contexts. However, this site can now be deemed an exception. More homogenous distribution is encountered at the Lower Danube in the sites ascribed to Babadag culture and in the intra-Carpathian region (Graphic 2).