Olteni Castle

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Olteni Castle
limes Dacian Limes
section A / VII / 38
Dating (occupancy) 2nd to 3rd century
Type Cohort fort
unit Cohors II Flavia Bessorum or Cohors IV Baetica (?)
size A) unknown
B) 100 m × 140 m = 1.4 ha
Construction A) Wood-earth warehouse
(suspected but not proven)
B) Stone fort
State of preservation Deformations visible in the terrain
place Olteni , Covasna County
Geographical location 45 ° 58 '15.4 "  N , 25 ° 50' 58.6"  E Coordinates: 45 ° 58 '15.4 "  N , 25 ° 50' 58.6"  E
height 570  m
Previous Sânpaul Fort
(north-northwest, A / VII / 37)
Subsequently Comolău Castle
(south, Limes section VIII)

Fort Olteni was a Roman auxiliary troop camp in the village of Olteni , Bodoc municipality , Covasna district in the Romanian region of Transylvania .

location

In today's settlement the soil monument is on the northern edge of the village of Olteni in the corridor "Vir". It was partially overbuilt by the Mikó Castle, built in 1827 . Where it was not damaged, the deformations of the soil caused by its wall stand out clearly in the terrain. Topographically, it is located on a high terrace protruding from the surrounding hilly landscape towards the Olt . In ancient times, its garrison was responsible for the control of the Tusnad pass to the east, leading from the Barbaricum .

Archaeological evidence

During the archaeological excavations that were carried out in the Roman discovery area, which has been known since the end of the 18th / beginning of the 19th century, in 1908, 1942, 1947, 1949, 1968 to 1970 and most recently under the direction of Zsolt Székely in 1987/1988 only one stone construction phase can be determined, even if a previous wood-earth store is assumed.

The stone fort had an approximately rectangular floor plan with rounded corners. Its axes were 100 m by 140 m long, which corresponds to a built-up area of ​​1.4 hectares. With its corners it was oriented in the four cardinal directions. It was surrounded by a 1.10 m thick, mighty wall using the technique of Opus incertum . The corners of the camp were not provided with towers, on the east side a protruding defensive tower with a square ground plan of 3.50 m side length was found. A simple, 6.00 m wide and 1.30 m to 1.50 m deep pointed ditch ran in front of the wall as an approach obstacle. The gates could be identified on the south and west sides. The gate on the south side was flanked by slightly protruding, rectangular towers with a floor plan of 5.50 m by 6.20 m each. The west gate also had rectangular but strongly protruding gate towers. Inside the fort a 13.50 m by 18.90 m (= 255.15 square meter) large, heatable building was uncovered. The relatively small amount of finds does not allow any reliable statements to be made about the beginning and end dates of the camp. It may have been built under Hadrian (136–161). In terms of the size of the fort and the brick stamps found, the fort was undisputedly designed to accommodate a Cohors quingenaria (480-strong infantry force), but the precise identification of the unit stationed in Olteni has led to 60 years of unfinished controversy among experts (see following section).

A tile grave and the controversy surrounding the Olteni garrison

Brick stamp from Olteni

As early as 1955, Zoltán Székely had published a letter dated December 15, 1795, in which a certain Miklós Gaáll from Olteni informed the scholar György Aranka from Cluj about the discovery of a brick stamp with the inscription "C IIII B" in 1957 on the southern edge of the village a Roman brick plate grave was discovered. It was a body grave facing west-east and measuring 180 cm by 46 cm by 51 cm, which contained the remains of a 30 to 40-year-old woman, in whose mouth a bronze Faustina coin was stuck as a Charon penny Dated to year 141. The brick slab construction consisted of two different types of brick as well as floor slabs and Tegulae Mammatae (wall tiles). More than 50 of these bricks were stamped "C IIII BE" - in different states of preservation. Székely had already considered in 1955 that the writer of the letter must have made a mistake and read the stamp incorrectly (IIII instead of II). He also concluded that the Olteni garrison must be the Cohors II Flavia Bessorum , which had been moved from the Cincşor fort (where it was stamped “C II FB”) to Olteni. After discovering the grave, he suggested several reading variants without explicitly giving preference to any of them:

  • C (ohors) IIII B (rittonum) E (quitata)
  • C (ohors) IIII BE (ssorum)
  • C (ohors) IIII B (e) T (avorum)

In 1966 Nicolae Gostar wanted to have a point in the middle of the numerical word (i.e. II.II) and suggested reading C (o) H (ors) II BE (ssorum) . In 1972 Ioan I. Russo preferred the variant C (ohors) IIII BE (tavorum) , not without pointing out that the combinations BE + T for C (ohors) IIII B (e) T (asiorum) and BE + L for C (ohors) IIII BEL (garum) would be conceivable. Dumitru Protase suggested the variants C (ohors) IIII BE (tavarum) and C (ohors) IIII B (a) T (avarum) in an essay on the auxiliary troops recruited in the Germanic provinces in 1973 , but noted the lack of these in the same text Units in further inscriptions and military diplomas. In 1983 Christian M. Vlădescu joined the debate in a work on the army in the province of Dacia inferior with the version C (ohors) IIII BE (tasiorum) and Constantin C. Petolescu concluded in 2002 that the stamp C (ohors) IIII BE (ssorum) must be read. In the meantime, Nicolae Gudea decided in 2001 for the reading C (ohors) IIII BET (asiorum) . An end to the debate does not seem to be in sight, it was announced in 2011 by Zsigmond Lóránd Bordi and Radu Iustinian Zăgreanu in the essay Auxilia from Olteni. Controversy and Interpretations critically summarized.

Lost property and monument protection

The excavation finds were given to the Muzeul Judecean Covasna ( District Museum Covasna) in Sfântu Gheorghe , from which today's Muzeului Naţional Secuiesc (Székely National Museum) emerged.

The entire archaeological site and in particular the castle are protected as historical monuments according to Law No. 422/2001 passed in 2001 and are registered with the LMI code CV-IsA-13073 in the national list of historical monuments ( Lista Monumentelor Istorice ) . Responsible is the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (Ministerul Culturii şi Patrimoniului Naţional), in particular the General Directorate for National Cultural Heritage, the Department of Fine Arts and the National Commission for Historical Monuments and other institutions subordinate to the Ministry. Unauthorized excavations and the export of ancient objects are prohibited in Romania.

See also

literature

  • Zsigmond Lóránd Bordi and Radu Iustinian Zăgreanu: Auxilia from Olteni. Controversy and Interpretations . In: Ephemeris Napocensis, XXI, (2011), pp. 131–144, ( digitized version ).
  • Nicolae Gudea : The Dacian Limes. Materials on its story . In: Yearbook of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz 44 (1997), p. 61f., ( Digitized version ).
  • Kurt Horedt: The southern Transylvanian Limes route Dacia . In: Dorothea Haupt and Heinz Günter Horn (Red.): Studies on the military borders of Rome. Lectures of the 10th international Limes Congress in the Germania inferior . Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1977, ISBN 3-7927-0270-3 , pp. 331–338.
  • Felix Marcu: The Internal Planning of Roman Forts of Dacia . (= Bibliotheca Mvsei Napocensis XXX), Mega Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca 2009, ISBN 978-606-543-058-7 , p. 147.
  • Florian Matei-Popescu: Trupele auxiliare pe limesul estic al Daciei. Stadiul problemei . ANGVSTIA, Studii şi cercetări de Arheologie 17–18 (2014), pp. 205–216, here pp. 209f., ( Digitized version ).
  • Florian Matei-Popescu and Ovidiu Ţentea: The Eastern Frontier of Dacia. A Gazetteer of the Forts and Units . In: Vitalie Bârcă (ed.): Orbis Romanus and Barbaricum. The Barbarians around the Province of Dacia and Their Relations with the Roman Empire . Mega Publishing House, Cluj ‑ Napoca 2016, ISBN 978-606-543-755-5 , pp. 7-24, especially p. 13, ( digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Route / section / fort number (based on Nicolae Gudea , 1997).
  2. ↑ a b AE 1977, 00717 and AE 2011, 01087 .
  3. ↑ Mikó Castle, Olteni on the website castleintransylvania.ro (English, Romanian, Hungarian), accessed on January 16, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b Nicolae Gudea: The Dacian Limes. Materials on its story . In: Yearbook of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz 44 (1997), p. 61, ( digitized version ).
  5. ↑ Nicolae Gudea: The Dacian Limes. Materials on its story . In: Yearbook of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz 44 (1997), p. 61, ( digitized version ).
  6. ↑ Zsigmond Lóránd Bordi and Radu Justinian Zăgreanu: Auxilia from Olteni. Controversy and Interpretations . In: Ephemeris Napocensis, XXI, (2011), pp. 131–144, ( digitized version ).
  7. ^ Felix Marcu: The Internal Planning of Roman Forts of Dacia . (= Bibliotheca Mvsei Napocensis XXX), Mega Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca 2009, ISBN 978-606-543-058-7 , p. 147.
  8. ↑ Nicolae Gudea: The Dacian Limes. Materials on its story . In: Yearbook of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz 44 (1997), p. 62, ( digitized version ).
  9. ↑ List of historical monuments on the website of the Romanian Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (in Romanian language)