ARCHAEOLOGY THE REINTERPRETATION OF THE SARMATIAN FINDS FROM THE ROMANIAN PLAIN (I)1 Vitalie Bârcă Institute of Archaeology and Art History of Cluj-Napoca
[email protected] Abstract: Within the pages of this study, the first in the series we aim to accomplish, we analyse a few of the Sarmatian finds in the Romanian Plain (Lehliu, Buzău, Olteniţa-Ulmeni, Vităneşti), which have arisen or still arise debates and for which several chronological frameworks have been suggested. Moreover, the author resumes the discussion of certain aspects related to the Sarmatian presence in the Romanian Plain. Following the analysis of the items in the damaged grave at Lehliu, it was noted that the brooch belongs to a variant dating to the second half of the 1st c. – early 2nd c. AD. Concerning the pendant, it was concluded that the appearance of the rendered character, his sitting position, anthropological type, dress and hairstyle are indicative of the features specific to the eastern populations of Central Asia, including those nomad Iranian. Analogies with the individual’s appearance, sitting position, hairstyle and dress on a series of items, including from the Sarmatian environment, point to a dating in the 1st c. – early 2nd c. AD. Based on such notes, it was reached the conclusion that the two items at Lehliu belonged to an individual in the Sarmatian group arriving from the east into the Danube mouths area, sometime in the second half of the 1st c. AD. Based on the examination of the items in the “hoard” at Buzău, the author concluded they are a very small part of the funerary inventory of a very rich woman’s grave, part of the aristocratic graves of the second half of the 1st c.