Tag: dacians

  • Romania’s ancient history, re-eenacted

    Romania’s ancient history, re-eenacted

    The population of the Getae and the
    Dacians, in antiquity, had reportedly inhabited the territory between the
    Danube, the Black Sea, the Carpathian Mountains and the intra-Carpathian basin.
    Evidence of their material culture has been unearthed in several archaeological
    sites. The artefacts that have been found so far even date before the time Dacia was conquered by the Romans, but also after that period of time and
    after the ensuing merger of the Dacian and the Roman civilizations. The weapons
    that have been found among the excavated artefacts hold pride of place with
    respect to the most valuable evidence that usually helps archaeologists get
    the picture of the Getae and the Dacians’ standards of progress as compared to
    those of the Romans.


    The Romans’ presence in the Lower Danube
    dates from the first century B.C. Quite a few of the Getae and Dacian tribes
    had entered the orbit of the Roman civilization. However, there were tribes
    that rejected such a merger of simply refused to be Roman subjects. The most
    rebellious Dacian king was Decebalus of the late first century AD. His state
    was located in the central-south-eastern part of today’s Romania, in the Southern
    Carpathians’ Sureanu Mountains. In the wake of two wars, 101-102 and 105-106 AD, waged by
    Emperor Trajan, Decebalus, the Dacian King was overpowered, beheaded, and his
    kingdom was conquered. Therefore, the Dacian-Roman synthesis emerged, which historians
    describe as the act underlying the formation of the Romanian nation.


    Established in 2007, the Terra Dacica Aeterna Association is made of
    a group of enthusiasts who stage re-enactment performances and promote the Getae
    and the Dacian culture. Dacia, the last frontier of the Roman era is the
    title of an exhibition and at its opening, Andrei Duduman of the aforementioned
    Association dressed himself in a Dacian’s apparel and presented the Dacians’ weapons,
    in a bid to provide a clear picture of the weapons Dacians and Romans used when
    they fought each other 1900 years ago. Andrei Duduman:

    We have the Dacian warrior, some sort of heavy infantry chieftain. For the Dacian warrior, the
    key visual item was the shield, whose design is inspired by the models on the
    column, they can be admired in the lapidarium as part of Romania’s Museum of National
    History. The second very important element is the sword, of a Celtic pattern,
    whose sheath is decorated with motifs that can be found on the famous Dacian
    matrix unearthed in Sarmizegetusa.
    Another item, crucial for the protection of the warrior, is the chain mail
    shirt. In our case, it is a chain mail shirt, a riveted one, perfect for a more
    affluent warrior, a richer one. The riveting made the shirt more resistant. The
    chain mail shirt provided protection from strikes, cuts, but les so in the case
    of stabs. It was especially designed to protect the warrior from cuts. I wear a
    Spangenhelm-type of helmet, of Sarmatian inspiration. It was made of metal
    segments, held together by stripes and rivets. As for the civilian part of my
    apparel, so to speak, I wear some silver jewels, the famous Dacian nails, in
    our case, there is only three of them. As far as I know, helmets with 5, with 7,
    with 9 nails have also been excavated, their number varies according to the resources and means of
    those wearing them. I also have several glass beads, and, of course, some
    rings, also made of silver, they are replicas of original artefacts. A very important
    item, an insignium of a Dacian nobleman, was the Sicca, the famous Dacian Sicca,
    a dagger.


    In turn, Lucian Vulpe played
    the part of a Roman legionnaire:


    With the
    Dacians, the gear was somehow non-standardized, having all sorts of decorations,
    without any gear resembling the others, yet with the Romans, everything was
    standardized. The Roman army was a professional army, everybody dressed and
    fought the same. The standard Roman legionnaire’s only key weapon was the
    gladius, an Iberian weapon, originating from Spain, which oftentimes was used
    not only in duels, but it was effective at thrusting. It was used in thrusting
    as in battle, many legionnaires had to close ranks and there was not enough room
    for them to move. Each legionnaire was protected by a lorica segmentata. It was a flexible, very mobile body armor, made of plate sheet segments, very easy to recondition during a fight. He also had a helmet which
    protected him very well from the Dacians’ curved or straight weapons. After the
    First Dacian-Roman War, the Roman helmet was reinforced, two iron bars were added
    in the middle, to help the legionnaires defend themselves against the Dacian Falx
    (sword). Completing the gear is the Roman shield, mostly decorated
    with wings and on which the name of the legion was inscribed, in our case the 5th
    Macedonica Legion, stationed in Turda. His footwear was made of caligae, the classic
    Roman sandals, whose pattern could vary. In the case of a centurion, they were
    more abundantly decorated and more performing than those of the ordinary
    legionnaires. They also had a tunic and a cloak, known as the Pennula, protecting
    the Roman soldiers from the rain or helping them to keep warm.


    With their weapons and their
    apparel, the Dacians and the Romans came back to life at Romania’s National
    Museum of History. In today’s world, the aficionados of the distant past have rendered flesh and blood to this long-forgotten world. (EN)

  • Radio Romania International Encyclopedia

    Radio Romania International Encyclopedia


    The Romanians have their own myths regarding their ancestors, just like all nations have. Ancestor-related myths prove their grandeur, their civilizing force, the creative vitality in all areas of spiritual and material life. Also, ancestor-related myths bestow confidence on their descendants. The Romanians ancestors are the Dacians and the Romans, about whom all sorts of narratives have been created, from the academic to the occult ones. Generally speaking, the ancient Gaeto-Dacian population inhabited Romanias today territory. However, no less important is the fact that on the same territory other populations lived, Celtic, Germanic or Scythian. The Gaeto-Dacians are mentioned by the ancient historian Herodotus in the 5th century BC as well as in the historical writings of the following centuries.




    Written evidence is scarce, which is indicative of the fact that the Gaeto-Dacians were a peripheral population in an area bordering the vast territory of Mediterranean civilization and culture. Archeological evidence for that is none the richer either. The other ancestors of the Romanians, the Romans, do not need any presentation. Between AD 101 and 102 and 105 and 106, respectively, in the wake of two wars, the Roman emperor Trajan defeated the Dacian King Decebalus. His country was occupied and incorporated into the Roman Empire until around AD 270, when the Romans withdrew from Dacia, to the territories south of the Danube.




    In the 19th century, the national idea was to search for ancestors, so that nation states could be created. The Romanians discovered the Dacians and the Romans and myths revolved around them. The longest-lasting such myth was the myth of the age of the language and the spiritual continuity and at that, intellectuals literally competed to churn scientific tenets about ancestors.




    Dan Alexe is a linguist. In his opinion, Mircea Eliade was one of those who created the myths of the Dacians.




    “Were we to give a specific example of a wrong and exhilarated approach which is present in Eliades work, we should mention the volume From Zalmoxis to Genghis Khan”. It is a collection of articles Eliade contributed to various magazines, that including several far-right, legionnaire magazines. But lets just say that does not have any bearing on the alleged method and scientific accuracy. What we are exposed to in this volume is an occultist hotchpotch of mystical ideas, whereby in the history of Romania, a cult of the wolf could be traced. That is one of the running threads in the book. And there, everything is misconstrued, nothing holds water. He starts off from the idea that the Dacians worshipped the wolf. However, in the ancient texts, in the ancient texts where the Dacians are mentioned, there is nothing supporting the idea. Eliade tried to prove, wobbly and with no strong argumentation, since he was not a linguist, that the name of Dacian itself meant wolf. And that, in anthropology, is preposterous. There is no population on the planet whose name is totemically derived from an animal. Never had such a population existed, that called itself the wolves. People are named people, we have the Germanic tribe calling themselves Alemanni, which means all the people. Generally speaking, a population and a well-rounded dialect do not have an ethnical identity, from a historical perspective. Such a population considers itself, culturally and tribally, the real people, while the others are called strangers or barbarians.




    Continuity and permanence define the myths of the ancestors. To that end, Dan Alexe pointed out the wolf had been overused in order to feed the same mental cliché, in Eliades work.




    Dan Alexe:




    “It was also Mircea Eliade who put forward the idea whereby the Romans had in turn a wolf-related identity, the Lupa Capitolina, and Mars himself, the Roman god of war, was a wolf-god. What Eliade tries to say is that the Dacian and the Latin wolves merged and after that, that wolf allegedly continued to exist until Genghis Khans Mongolian invasions. Since the Mongolians themselves had the wolf as their totem, Genghis Khan was the offspring of a mysterious mating with a she-wolf. So the Dacian wolf continued to exist for a thousand years, until Genghis Khans Mongolians emerged, with another wolf. So the totem and the wolf have been defining us throughout the millennia. “




    Dan Alexe shares the opinion whereby we need to be extremely cautious with respect to the accuracy of the ancient sources when they provide information on remote populations.




    “Strabo says I dont know what, while about the Dacians, Herodotus says they were the most righteous among the Thracians. Let us not forget the Greeks did not leave any conversation guide whatsoever, not even a small one, not even a tiny dictionary of the neighboring languages. Thracians, Phrygians, Lydians were the neighbors of the Greeks, there were also other neighboring peoples about whom we know absolutely nothing because the Greeks were not interested in what languages they spoke, they were barbarians. If we do not have a dictionary that might enable us to find out what language Alexander III of Macedon, who was not a purebred Greek, spoke, Macedonian was, however, a different language, it wasnt a variety of Greek, could we assume they knew accurate things about the barbarians of the Danube, 2,000 kilometers north, in land which was beyond reach? The Dacians and the Gaete are generic denominations. Even in more recent years, in the days of my youth, when people spoke about somebody who fled to Yugoslavia, they said he fled to the Serbs. Serbs encompassed them all, the Macedonians, the Albanians, the Croats, the Slovenians. For us, it was to the Serbs. If thats how it is today, now that we have all sorts of info opportunities at our fingertips, could we assume Herodotus was sure to know who the Dacians were?”




    The ancestors of Romanians have their own place in the past. They were people of their time, and they were neither below nor above others, they were people with their hopes and frustrations. Just like we are today.




  • Radio Romania International Encyclopedia

    Radio Romania International Encyclopedia


    The Romanians have their own myths regarding their ancestors, just like all nations have. Ancestor-related myths prove their grandeur, their civilizing force, the creative vitality in all areas of spiritual and material life. Also, ancestor-related myths bestow confidence on their descendants. The Romanians ancestors are the Dacians and the Romans, about whom all sorts of narratives have been created, from the academic to the occult ones. Generally speaking, the ancient Gaeto-Dacian population inhabited Romanias today territory. However, no less important is the fact that on the same territory other populations lived, Celtic, Germanic or Scythian. The Gaeto-Dacians are mentioned by the ancient historian Herodotus in the 5th century BC as well as in the historical writings of the following centuries.




    Written evidence is scarce, which is indicative of the fact that the Gaeto-Dacians were a peripheral population in an area bordering the vast territory of Mediterranean civilization and culture. Archeological evidence for that is none the richer either. The other ancestors of the Romanians, the Romans, do not need any presentation. Between AD 101 and 102 and 105 and 106, respectively, in the wake of two wars, the Roman emperor Trajan defeated the Dacian King Decebalus. His country was occupied and incorporated into the Roman Empire until around AD 270, when the Romans withdrew from Dacia, to the territories south of the Danube.




    In the 19th century, the national idea was to search for ancestors, so that nation states could be created. The Romanians discovered the Dacians and the Romans and myths revolved around them. The longest-lasting such myth was the myth of the age of the language and the spiritual continuity and at that, intellectuals literally competed to churn scientific tenets about ancestors.




    Dan Alexe is a linguist. In his opinion, Mircea Eliade was one of those who created the myths of the Dacians.




    “Were we to give a specific example of a wrong and exhilarated approach which is present in Eliades work, we should mention the volume From Zalmoxis to Genghis Khan”. It is a collection of articles Eliade contributed to various magazines, that including several far-right, legionnaire magazines. But lets just say that does not have any bearing on the alleged method and scientific accuracy. What we are exposed to in this volume is an occultist hotchpotch of mystical ideas, whereby in the history of Romania, a cult of the wolf could be traced. That is one of the running threads in the book. And there, everything is misconstrued, nothing holds water. He starts off from the idea that the Dacians worshipped the wolf. However, in the ancient texts, in the ancient texts where the Dacians are mentioned, there is nothing supporting the idea. Eliade tried to prove, wobbly and with no strong argumentation, since he was not a linguist, that the name of Dacian itself meant wolf. And that, in anthropology, is preposterous. There is no population on the planet whose name is totemically derived from an animal. Never had such a population existed, that called itself the wolves. People are named people, we have the Germanic tribe calling themselves Alemanni, which means all the people. Generally speaking, a population and a well-rounded dialect do not have an ethnical identity, from a historical perspective. Such a population considers itself, culturally and tribally, the real people, while the others are called strangers or barbarians.




    Continuity and permanence define the myths of the ancestors. To that end, Dan Alexe pointed out the wolf had been overused in order to feed the same mental cliché, in Eliades work.




    Dan Alexe:




    “It was also Mircea Eliade who put forward the idea whereby the Romans had in turn a wolf-related identity, the Lupa Capitolina, and Mars himself, the Roman god of war, was a wolf-god. What Eliade tries to say is that the Dacian and the Latin wolves merged and after that, that wolf allegedly continued to exist until Genghis Khans Mongolian invasions. Since the Mongolians themselves had the wolf as their totem, Genghis Khan was the offspring of a mysterious mating with a she-wolf. So the Dacian wolf continued to exist for a thousand years, until Genghis Khans Mongolians emerged, with another wolf. So the totem and the wolf have been defining us throughout the millennia. “




    Dan Alexe shares the opinion whereby we need to be extremely cautious with respect to the accuracy of the ancient sources when they provide information on remote populations.




    “Strabo says I dont know what, while about the Dacians, Herodotus says they were the most righteous among the Thracians. Let us not forget the Greeks did not leave any conversation guide whatsoever, not even a small one, not even a tiny dictionary of the neighboring languages. Thracians, Phrygians, Lydians were the neighbors of the Greeks, there were also other neighboring peoples about whom we know absolutely nothing because the Greeks were not interested in what languages they spoke, they were barbarians. If we do not have a dictionary that might enable us to find out what language Alexander III of Macedon, who was not a purebred Greek, spoke, Macedonian was, however, a different language, it wasnt a variety of Greek, could we assume they knew accurate things about the barbarians of the Danube, 2,000 kilometers north, in land which was beyond reach? The Dacians and the Gaete are generic denominations. Even in more recent years, in the days of my youth, when people spoke about somebody who fled to Yugoslavia, they said he fled to the Serbs. Serbs encompassed them all, the Macedonians, the Albanians, the Croats, the Slovenians. For us, it was to the Serbs. If thats how it is today, now that we have all sorts of info opportunities at our fingertips, could we assume Herodotus was sure to know who the Dacians were?”




    The ancestors of Romanians have their own place in the past. They were people of their time, and they were neither below nor above others, they were people with their hopes and frustrations. Just like we are today.




  • Dacian kilns in Satu Mare

    Dacian kilns in Satu Mare

    The region making up today’s central Romania, inside the Carpathian arch up to the Danube River in the south and southwest, was conquered in 106 by the Roman Emperor Trajan to later become, for 165 years, the Roman Province of Dacia.



    Many of the territories Dacians inhabited at the time remained free, but were under the cultural and economic influence of the Roman Empire. One of these territories inhabited by free Dacians was located in the north of today’s Romania, more precisely in Satu Mare County.



    Archaeological diggings revealed the existence of intense economic ties between the free Dacians, the Roman administration and the inhabitants of the conquered province. Diggings also unearthed Dacian kilns for burning clay in Medieşu-Aurit. At present, this site is deemed to have been the biggest centre for manufacturing ceramic objects in the whole of Europe during the Roman Empire period. The first archaeological diggings took place between 1965 and 1967, when 10 kilns were unearthed.



    Diggings were resumed in 2000 and ever since, practically every year, the number of discovered kilns has grown, reaching almost 260. The kilns were used mainly for burning ceramic containers for food. The containers had more than 1 meter in height and their diameter sometimes exceeded 200 cm. The objects found as well as the kilns date back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries. In Medieşu-Aurit Dacians used to make kilns in the same area where they lived, unlike other regions where the production area was located on the outskirts of settlements.



    Archaeologist Robert Gindele, who is in charge of the archaeological site in Mediesu-Aurit, will now tell us more about the area where the Dacian kilns were discovered: “The site is unique because that was an almost industrial area, the whole activity in the region focused on making ceramic objects. In other places, the kilns were placed near human settlements. In this case, the Dacians lived in the very area with kilns, their main activity being the production of ceramic objects. The site is located 100 kms away from the Roman city of Porolissum (currently the village of Moigrad in Salaj County). Given the context, we do not rule out the idea that this ceramics centre provided ceramic objects to the Roman army. We have unearthed several military objects which point to the presence of the Roman army in the area. Basically, it was the ancient correspondent of a present-day industrial zone. Very recently, we have also discovered a centre for iron ore reduction only 3 km away. It was a very active industrial region, if we may say so, and it was the most important such area in the ‘barbarian’ Europe of those times.”



    With every digging session, tens of thousands of pottery fragments are found. Some of them are regarded by experts as “ethnic indicators.” Robert Gindele tells us what the stylistic and other elements are, which help archaeologists distinguish between the Germanic pottery and the Dacian one, for instance: “We can safely say that the site was inhabited, and that the pots had been made by free Dacians. This is very interesting, because in the same area archaeologists also discovered Germanic sites, Vandal to be more precise. But the Mediesu site only contains Dacian items. It is Dacian, ancient, hand-made pottery. It has certain well-known characteristics, displayed even by the typical 3rd-century models like the Dacian teacup, the alveolar band on pots and other motifs dating back to the rules of Decebalus and Burebista, before the Roman conquest. These archaic, traditional motifs were in use until the 4th century.”



    Some of the pottery pieces found in Mediesu-Aurit, in Satu-Mare County, are on display in various museums across Romania. Part of the site is also open for tourists, who can see first-hand the famous Dacian pottery kilns, and can watch the archaeologists at work.