Porolissum

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Coordinates: 47 ° 10 ′ 45.1 ″  N , 23 ° 9 ′ 26.4 ″  E

Outdated attempt to reconstruct the main gate ( Porta praetoria ) at the Porolissum fort. The building was actually one storey higher, the distance between the battlements was wider and the cornice surrounding the defensive wall and towers is missing.
Plan of the Porolissum fort

Porolissum ( Greek  Πορόλισσον ) was an ancient Roman settlement in northwestern Dacia . Their remains are in the area of ​​today's Moigrad-Porolissum in the Mirșid municipality in Sălaj County in Romania .

history

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Porolissum​
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Romania

Porolissum was founded by the Romans 106 after the conquest of Dacia. Since the place name Porolissum cannot be explained from Latin , it is assumed that an older Dacian settlement with a similar-sounding name was located here. The Romans probably first built several wooden forts connected by a Limes wall, in which about 5000 auxiliary troops were stationed.

The forts were later replaced by a larger stone fort on Pomet Hill. This covered about 6.7 hectares and had four gates. Porolissum became the administrative seat of the newly formed province of Dacia Porolissensis , which it gave its name to. A civil settlement (lat. Vicus ) was built on the slopes of the Pomet hill over the next few decades . This received a stone amphitheater in 157 , which offered space for about 5000 to 8000 spectators. After Septimius Severus (193–211) raised it to municipium , it was renamed Municipium Septimium Porolissense and the amphitheater and several temples were renovated. In 214 Caracalla visited the city, at that time it had about 20,000 inhabitants, including the auxiliary troops. Even after the Romans withdrew in 271, the city remained inhabited until it was abandoned and forgotten at the end of the 10th century. It was rediscovered in the 19th century.

In Porolissum, among others, the cohors I Ulpia Brittonum civium Romanorum , which had distinguished itself in the Dacian War, the cohors II Nervia Brittonum milliaria (proven since 133 AD) and a unit of Palmyren archers (proven since 120 AD) were stationed . The latter have been recorded in the province of Dacia Superior since the reign of Hadrian , and corresponding military diplomas were found in the forts Porolissum, Românași, Jibou , Cășei ( Samum ) and the civil settlement of Tibiscum . It is believed that this unit 114 was recruited in preparation for the Parthian Wars.

Monument protection and presentation

The entire archaeological site and the archaeological ensemble with all the construction phases, in particular the fort, the amphitheater and the ancient civil town, are protected as historical monuments according to Act No. 422/2001 passed in 2001 and are under the LMI code SJ-IsA -04909 registered in the National List of Historic Monuments (Lista Monumentelor Istorice). Responsible is the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage ( Ministerul Culturii și Patrimoniului Na ,ional ), in particular the General Directorate for National Cultural Heritage, the Department of Fine Arts, the National Commission for Historical Monuments and other institutions subordinate to the Ministry.

The finds from Porolissum are in the Zalau District Museum . On site you can see casts of some structural elements and inscriptions as well as altars. The foundation walls of a number of buildings along the Roman road (temples and taverns as well as private buildings) and inside the city walls ( praetorium ) have been exposed and preserved. Signs in Romanian and English open up the area. The amphitheater is partially reconstructed, a line of cement shows the originally preserved height of the walls. Since 2014, further buildings along the Römerstrasse have been exposed again.

Every summer the Museum Zalau organizes a Porolissum Festival, in which employees of the museum and other Transylvanian museums and interested laypeople demonstrate Roman, Dacian and Arpad period Hungarian equipment, weapons and tactics and reenact scenes from the history of the city. The museum's educational offer introduces further areas of Roman culture, such as nutrition and handicrafts.

Excavations and research history

Remains of a Roman house

The Hungarian archaeologists Aladár Radnóti (1913–1972) and László Barkóczi carried out excavations at the fort in 1943, the year of the war. Scientific investigations have only taken place again since the early 1970s. It was then that Romanian archaeologists came to Porolissum for the first time for ongoing excavation campaigns. During this work, both remains of military facilities and remains of the former city were uncovered - including public baths, an amphitheater and a temple in honor of Liber Pater . One of the castle gates was rebuilt as a visitor attraction on the ancient foundations, but shows, among other things, with its overly narrow battlements and the missing surrounding cornice on the gate and wall, an outdated, inaccurate reconstruction status. Currently, a Romanian-American team of archaeologists is focused on uncovering the city's forum. An underground building in the center of the fort has been investigated since 2009, which could be a mithraium .

literature

  • István Bajusz: The military amphitheater of Porolissum in Dacia (Salaj County, Romania). In: Limes XIX. Proceedings of the XIXth International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies held in Pécs, Hungary, September 2003. University of Pécs, Pécs 2005, pp. 881-890.
  • Constantin Daicoviciu : Porolissum. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XXII, 1, Stuttgart 1953, Col. 265-270.
  • Nicolae Gudea , Wolfgang Schuller, Kurt Schmidts: Porolissum. Excerpts from the life of a Dacian-Roman border settlement in the northwest of the province of Dacia Porolissensis. Black Sea Studies No. 6. Verlag Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam 1998, ISBN 90-256-1127-3 .
  • Nicolae Gudea: Porolissum - keystone of the defense of Dacia. In: Hermann Vetters, M. Kandler (Ed.): Files of the 14th International Limes Congress 1986 in Carnuntum. Pp. 833-842.
  • Nicolae Gudea, D. Tamba: Sanctuaries and military in Porolissum. In: Limes XIX. Proceedings of the XIXth International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies held in Pécs, Hungary, September 2003. University of Pécs, Pécs 2005, pp. 471-484.
  • Coriolan Horațiu Opreanu & Vlad-Andrei Lăzărescu: The province of Dacia . In this. (Ed.): Landscape Archeology on the Northern Frontier of the Roman Empire at Porolissum. An interdisciplinary research project . Mega Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca 2016, ISBN 978-606-543-787-6 , pp. 74-91, ( digitized version ).
  • Ioan Piso: The Cohors III Campestris in Porolissum. In: Franziska Beutler, Wolfgang Hameter (Hrsg.): A perfectly normal inscription ... and the like for Ekkehard Weber's birthday. Festschrift as of April 30, 2005. Austrian Society for Archeology, Vienna 2005, pp. 325–332.
  • Ioan Piso: On the origin of the province of Dacia Porolissensis . In: E. Weber, G. Dobesch (Hrsg.): Roman history, antiquity and epigraphy, Festschrift for Artur Betz on the completion of his 80th year of life . (= Archaeological-Epigraphic Studies 1). Vienna 1985, 471-481.
  • Endre Tóth : Porolissum. The Castellum in Moigrad. Excavations by A. Radnóti, 1943. Hungarian National Museum, Budapest 1978, ISBN 963-562-435-2 .

See also

List of Limes forts in Dacia

Web links

Commons : Porolissum  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tóth: Porolissum . S. 8 .
  2. ↑ CIL 3, 7962 = ILS 7130.
  3. ↑ Carmen Ciongradi, Emilian Bota, Valentin Voișian: A constitution for the auxiliary troops of Dacia Porolissensis from the year 128 AD In: Journal for papyrology and epigraphy . Volume 170, 2009, p. 212. jstor.org .
  4. ↑ a b Constantin C. Petolescu: "Palmyreni sagittarii" in un nouveau diplôme militaire de la Dacie Supérieure . Latomus 34, 1975, 1021 jstor.org .
  5. ↑ Ovidiu Tentea: Some Remarks on Palmyreni Sagittarii. On the first records of Palmyrenes within the Roman army . In: Ioan Piso Viorica Rusu-Bolindeț, Rada Varga, Eugeia Beu-Dachin, Silvia Mustață, Ligia Ruscu (eds.): Scripta Classica. Radu Ardevan Sexagenarii Dedicata . Babeș-Boyali University, Department of Ancient History and Archeology, Center for Roman Studies, Cluj-Napoca 2011, pp. 371–378 ( full text ).
  6. ↑ Ovidiu Tentea: Some Remarks on Palmyreni Sagittarii. On the First Records of Palmyrenes within the Roman Army . In: Ioan Piso Viorica Rusu-Bolindeț, Rada Varga, Eugeia Beu-Dachin, Silvia Mustață, Ligia Ruscu (eds.): Scripta Classica. Radu Ardevan Sexagenarii Dedicata . Babeș-Boyali University, Department of Ancient History and Archeology, Center for Roman Studies, Cluj-Napoca 2011, p. 6.
  7. ↑ Ovidiu Tentea: Some Remarks on Palmyreni Sagittarii. On the First Records of Palmyrenes within the Roman Army . In: Ioan Piso Viorica Rusu-Bolindeț, Rada Varga, Eugeia Beu-Dachin, Silvia Mustață, Ligia Ruscu (eds.): Scripta Classica. Radu Ardevan Sexagenarii Dedicata . Babeș-Boyali University, Department of Ancient History and Archeology, Center for Roman Studies, Cluj-Napoca 2011, p. 7.
  8. ↑ List of historical monuments on the website of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage ( Memento of the original of June 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cultura.abt.ro
  9. ^ Anne Johnson (German adaptation by Dietwulf Baatz ): Römische Kastelle . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1987, ISBN 3-8053-0868-X , pp. 81-112.