ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN CANABAE/MUNICIPIUM SEPTIMIUM APULENSE-SOUTHERN SECTOR

Abstract

A preventive archaeological survey of the southern sector of the civil settlement developed near the Castrum of Apulum has revealed vestiges that reveal a dense habitation, in three stages, between the second half of the second century and the third century AD. The third-century habitation shows the expansion to the south of the settlement that was urbanised at the end of the second century AD., in the time of Septimius Severus. The Severan dynasty is probably the most prosperous period in the history of Roman Dacia. Due to the fidelity of the legions XIII Gemina and V Macedonica in the long civil war waged against Pescenius Niger and Clodius Albinus the civil settlements developed around the Apulum and Potaissa legionary fortresses, along with other important settlements of Dacia such as Porolissum, Ampelum, Tibiscum and Dierna were urbanized. In addition to the rather common archaeological material, a torso of a votive statuette representing Dionysus/Liber Pater was recovered—a genuine import piece most likely brought through trade, probably from Asia Minor, similar to the other sculptural masterpieces of the god discovered in the well-known sanctuary erected in the first city of Apulum, colonia Aurelia Apulensis, located beneath the modern Partoș district of Alba Iulia. The discovery of clay oil lamps with the marks (Firmalampen) Atimetus, Festus, Fronto and Strobilus shows once again the development of oil lamp production in the Apulum urban centre. A fragment from a zoomorphic fibula in the form of a rooster shows cultural influences from the Western world, Britannia or Gallia, or even a colonisation. It is the only fibula of this type discovered in Apulum. Last but not least, a few beef bones and a deer horn with traces of cutting and grinding attest to the existence of the third workshop for bone and horn processing in the civil settlement near the fortification, dated to the last quarter of the second century AD.