Gabriel Mircea TALMAȚCHI*
Abstract. Analysis of various aspects of everyday life, specific to the Roman world during the time of Constantine and post-Constantine in provincial territories, includes also the civil architecture. For the province of Scythia, we know so far, a few buildings included in the Domus type, as well as the ones discovered in the Roman and Roman-Byzantine fortifications and urban centres from Dinogetia, Histria and Tropaeum Traiani. Archaeological researches from the last decade, conducted in the southern neighborhood of the late Roman city Tropaeum Traiani, revealed a new civil imposing edifice, having a rectangular and axial plan, which corresponds to the „pattern” of the big Roman house, Domus type. Located west of cardo, this building brings new general and particular information regarding the plan metric and functional architectural development of such edifices, during the 4th-6th centuries AD. Their specific features for the eastern part of the Empire have been modified, mainly due to the available space, the repeated interventions on the original space by successive rearrangements, as necessary. At the same time, the location of this building, compared to other significant constructions in the area, indicates a possible social and economic importance. The discovery is exceptional for the history of the architecture of the city of Tropaeum Traiani in the Late Roman period and for that of the province of Scythia. Moreover, during the excavations in the southern quarter, numerous items were uncovered belonging to the category known as “small finds,” namely coins from the 1st-6th centuries AD. and the 10th-11th centuries AD., either isolated or as part of hoards (four hoards, three of which are Early Medieval with late Byzantine pieces, and one containing early Byzantine pieces from the end of the 6th century AD.). Added to these are a number of fortuitous discoveries of small items such as fibulae, rings, and coins specific to the 1st-3rd centuries AD., the latter grouped in coin hoards, which highlight relevant aspects of the evolution of Roman society at Tropaeum and within its sphere of military, political, and economic influence in the province of Moesia Inferior during the Early Roman period, after the end of the Dacian-Roman conflict. All these archaeological and numismatic discoveries essentially complete the previous information regarding the situation of the early and late Roman city of Tropaeum Traiani, and its role within the historical, economic, and military realities specific to the ancient history of the Dobruja region.
Keywords: Tropaeum Traiani, southern neighborhood, archaeological research, 4th-6th centuries AD., province, Moesia Inferior, Scythia, coins, hoards, small find.
DOI 10.56082/annalsarscihist.2025.1.5
*Gabriel Mircea TALMAȚCHI, PhD, Senior researcher I habil., Museum of National History and Archaeology Constanța, Associate professor, Doctoral School of Humanities, Ovidius University Constanța.
PUBLISHED in Annals of the Academy of Romanian Scientists Annals Series on History and Archaeology, Volume 17, No1