Archaeology - ROMANIA Monthly Update - June 2007

Volunteer Archaeological Update - June 2007

Alba Iulia is one of my favorite places for digging. The area is very rich in history, and the archeologists like to spend as much of their field time there as possible. In a way I can understand them, as working in the office is not that interesting! On the other hand the dig is only one part of the archeologists' work. After the dig comes the sorting and analysis of information, all of which is very important.

We were called on to help with some digging at the University where they knew they would find archaeological remains. The upper layers of earth (i.e. the newer ones) contained late medieval remains and below this layer were remains from the early medieval times, the Post-Roman times and the Roman times. It is interesting that no Dacian remains have been found in the city. Dacian settlements were found around the city, but not inside.

Unfortunately the digging from the University didn't go as well as hoped so we had to move to another site. There were several sites in the area and we chose a Hallstatt and Post-Roman one.

So we went to dig two post-roman houses. Both were made by a Germanic tribe which came to the area after the Romans left. They came to the area and met the Daco-Roman population that didn't retreat. The style of construction was similar. They made holes in the ground and then put four piles of wood in each corner of the house to support the walls and the roof. The houses were made of clay, but they also used materials from Roman houses that were abandoned when the Romans retreated.

In one of the houses we found a piece of a poor quality marble which would have come from either a roman villa or one of the temples. We also found a lot of objects composed mainly of pottery and bones. In one of the houses we also found a bone comb in a style which was typical of Germanic tribes.

On the surface of the site the house appears like a black spot in a rectangular shape. The dimensions of the ones that we dug were approximately four meters. We left a 'witness' in the middle of the house, 30 centimeters wide. This was needed in order to have a clear view of the layers from the interior of the house. The dig is done layer by layer usually, but we didn't find any layers so we were taking around 10 centimeters from the interior of the house as a layer. The house had collapsed and inside we found remains of the walls. We didn't find the roof but we found the floor of the house.

We also dug three garbage pits, but they were not that interesting.

We spent some days in Alba Iulia but it rained a lot so we had to do something else instead. The restoration area of Alba Iulia was the chosen place. The laboratory was good, the people were nice, and there was work to be done. First of all we washed the pottery that was dirty and tried to put the pieces together. After they are washed they are put all around the table to dry. The next thing is to try to put them together. You can try to match them by observing the pattern, the composition of the pot, the color of it, and other things. They are bound together with a certain type of clay and are put in a sand box where they are left to affix together.

We did other work on metal artifacts which we cleaned with special tools and chemicals and then applied special materials to them for protection.

George Andrei CIOTLAUSI
Archaeology Assistant for Project Abroad Romania

Projects Abroad Archaeology Centre Romania
7^th July 2007

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