Archaeology - ROMANIA Monthly Update - May 2007

Volunteer Archaeological Update - May 2007

The Sic village is situated in the centre of Transylvania. It was famous for the salt mines in the area and was an important place for distributing this resource all over the province.

It was mentioned for the first time in 1291 and in 1330 was one of the most important settlements in the area. Later on, around XVI century the inhabitants changed their religion to Lutheranism and lather on to Unitarianism. Eventually in the first half of the XVII century they embraced the reform.

In 1717 it was invaded by the Tartars who burned the entire village and the church. This event is still commemorated by the inhabitants of the village in the month of August. At the beginning of the XIX century the place decayed because of the closing of the salt mines.

The church is situated in the centre of the village and it was built on a slope. It has a basilica structure. Over time it suffered a lot of damage and the last restoring was done in around 1950. It was time for more serious restorations, because a lot of the church walls had cracks from the roof till the ground. For this some archaeological digging needed to be done. The research would provide important information about the church and the community, and for the structural engineers. They would need to know exactly the situation of the foundation. There were 8 sections made, 7 of them around the church. They were done in collaboration with the structure engineer in the area which supposedly would give information about the structure of the foundation.

The discoveries were not very important and the digging was quite boring. We discovered 38 graves situated on two levels, one of them from before the building of the church. In one of the graves were found two earrings. Other interesting things were a wall that was built before the church and the remains of contra forts that were probably part of the system of fortification. Only a few bags of pottery were found. The layers from the section were disturbed which indicated a series of fittings of the terrace.

We stayed in a retirement home. There was no hot water and not much cold water. We had to have the necessary showers in the village at the house of the priest. The good thing was that the area was very nice and the people were friendly. And we were also treated to traditional Transylvanian home made food.

George Andrei CIOTLAUSI
Archaeology Assistant for Project Abroad Romania

Projects Abroad Archaeology Centre Romania
8^th June 2007

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