ACADEMIA ROMÂNĂ INSTITUTUL DE ARHEOLOGIE ŞI ISTORIA ARTEI EPHEMERIS NAPOCENSIS XXVI 2016 EDITURA ACADEMIEI ROMÂNE SUMAR – SOMMAIRE – CONTENTS – INHALT STUDIES VITALIE BÂRCĂ The Dating of the Sarmatian Grave at Sânnicolau Mare – Seliște (Timiș County, Romania) and the Problem of the Early Sarmatian Entry and Settlement of the Pannonian Plain .......................................................................................................... 7 LAVINIA GRUMEZA Post Roman and Sarmatian Pottery Workshops in Banat, Between the End of the 3rd – Beginning of the 5th Century AD ................................................................... 67 C. H. OPREANU, V.-A. LĂZĂRESCU The Evolution of the Civilian Settlement at Porolissum in the Light of the New Research ................................................................................................................ 107 IOAN STANCIU, CORNELIU BELDIMAN, DIANA-MARIA SZTANCS, CORALIA DORINA BONTA Economic and Everyday Life Facets in an Early Medieval Settlement from North‑Western Transylvania, Reflected by the Bone Artefacts ........................................ 121 ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND EPIGRAPHICAL NOTES COSMIN ONOFREI Publius Aelius Theimes from Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa ............................................. 201 CĂLIN COSMA Avar Warriors in North‑West Romania during the 7th – 8th Centuries. Notes on the Political Status of North‑West Romania during the 7th – 8th Centuries ........ 205 IURIE STAMATI “Long Live Romanian Soviet Friendship!” An Exploration of the Relationship Between Archaeologists from USSR and the People’s/Socialist Republic of Romania ������������������� 235 REVIEWS Mugur Andronic, Istoria Bucovinei. Vol. II. În epoca marilor migraţii şi până la încheierea formării Moldovei medievale [The History of Bukovina. Vol. 2. In the Era of the Great Migrations and until the End of the Foundation of Medieval Moldavia]. Societatea Culturală “Ştefan cel Mare”. Pagini din Istoria şi Cultura Bucovinei XIII (Suceava 2014), 465 p. (Ioan Stanciu) .............................. 253 Coriolan Horaţiu Opreanu, Vlad Lăzărescu, A Roman frontier marketplace at Porolissum in the light of numismatic evidence. Contribution to the knowledge of the Roman limes economy. Corpus Limitis Imperii Romani. Dacia Porolissensis (I): Porolissum. Porolissum Monographs I). Editura mega‑Editura Caiete Silvane (Cluj‑Napoca/Zalău 2015), 178 p. + 32 pl. (Florin Fodorean) ...... 261 Simona Scarcella (Ed.), Archaeological Ceramics: A Review of Current Research [BAR International Series 2193] (Oxford 2011), 175 pages and 144 figures (Vlad-Andrei Lăzărescu) ...................... 265 Florin Fodorean, The Topography and the Landscape of Roman Dacia, BAR International Series 2501, (Oxford, 2013), 147 p. (Dan Deac) ................................................................................ 271 POST ROMAN AND SARMATIAN POTTERY WORKSHOPS IN BANAT, BETWEEN THE END OF THE 3RD – BEGINNING OF THE 5TH CENTURY AD* Lavinia Grumeza1 Abstract: During the late-Roman and post-Roman periods the pottery assemblages from centres of the western limes display an extremely varied local production combined with a very low proportion of imports. The inhabitants of Tibiscum, Mehadia or Dierna, whether Roman or not, still engaged in a Roman lifestyle reflected by the material culture, namely the pottery. There is a clear preference on their side for high quality red ware, as opposed to their Sarmatians neighbours, who produced and used grey colored pottery with burnished decoration, adopting only the Roman shapes. In the period, the Barbarians also earned economic independence, many pottery workshops being known in east and south of Banat, at Vršac– Crvenka, Grădinari–Selişte, Timişoara–Freidorf, Pančevo, Dolovo, Timişoara–Dragaşina, Hodoni, Pančevo, Dolovo, Izvin and Jabuca. From then date also the most numerous and extended Sarmatian settlements in the area, such late habitat clustering especially in south Banat. Keywords: Sarmatian, Roman, pottery, workshop, Banat 1. State of research2 The problem of late‑Roman (AD 225–271) and post‑Roman (AD 271–375) pottery from Dacia was rarely addressed in the archaeological literature from Romania, studies emphasizing instead the pottery production centers situated along the Danube and the Black Sea coast still under direct Roman rule, such as: Dierna3, Mehadia4, Gornea5, Halmyris6, Sucidava, Troesmis and Noviodunum7. This shortcoming is partially the result of difficulties entailed in the dating of the late phases of Roman rule / Roman presence within the sites north of the Danube. On the other hand, the pottery from the “Sarmatian” Barbaricum in the Banat region during the same period was the subject of numerous studies, often driven by nationalistic * Acknowledgements: This work was cofinaced from the European Social Fund through Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007 – 2013, project number POSDRU/159/1.5/S/140863, Competitive Researchers in Europe in the Field of Humanities and Socio‑Economic Sciences. A Multi‑regional Research Network (West University of Timișoara). 1 The West University of Timișoara, Blvd. V. Parvan 4, 300223, Timișoara, Timiș County, RO; email: lavinia_ [email protected]. 2 We are grateful to Prof. P. Kenrick, O. Bozu and R. Gindele for their observations and bibliographical suggestions. 3 BENEA 1976. 4 BENEA 2005. 5 GUDEA 1977. 6 TOPOLEANU 2000. 7 OPAIȚ 2004. Ephemeris Napocensis, XXVI, 2016, p. 67–106 68 Lavinia Grumeza ambitions, which set out to prove that the entire Banat region was an integral part of Roman Dacia during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. Furthermore, according to the same narrative, the region was maintained even in later periods within the sphere of influence of the Empire, as it was allegedly home to a consistent Romanized population. The region under scrutiny, known from the 18th century onward under the name of Banat, is today divided between three states: Romania, Serbia and Hungary. The geographical borders of the region are: the Mureș River in the north, the Tisa River in the west, the Danube in the south, and the Carpathian Mountains, between the Zam gorge and the springs of the Cerna River, to the east. The current administrative division has determined the ethnic ascription of archaeological finds from the period between the nd2 and 5th centuries AD in all three involved countries. Natalija Simovljević was the first to suggest that future archaeological interpretation should be based on the geographic aspects of the region. First of all the region as a whole should not be viewed as a single entity, a clear‑cut distinction should be made between the lowlands, part of the Great Hungarian Plain and characterized by a steppe‑like environment and the eastern mountainous woodland, constituent of the Carpathian mountain range. From an archaeological standpoint, the western part is dominated by Sarmatian sites (both settlements and cemeteries), while the eastern side shows signs of intense Roman habitation8. Starting with the 80’s the excavation and publication of the 3rd–4th centuries AD sites from the Banat Lowlands (Hodoni9, Timişoara–Freidorf10, Grădinari–Săliște11, Moldova Veche–Vinograda‑Vlașkicrai12, Timișoara–Cioreni, Greoni, Gătaia13, Foeni–Săliște14 etc.) was commenced. As a result of the investigations, the sites were unanimously interpreted as rural settlements of the native Daco‑Roman population. The so‑called Daco‑Roman environment is characterized by ‘a synthesis of the Roman material culture and specific elements adopted from the Dacian environment’15. The fact that primarily drew attention to the sites was the discovery in their vicinity of ‘characteristic archaeological material, especially fragments of grey pottery’16. To the present day over 400 spots with this sort of ‘Daco‑Roman’ discoveries can be pinpointed throughout the Banat Lowlands17. The majority of these sites have not benefited from an objective assessment, moreover no attempt has been made to draw any parallels with the archaeological record of the western Banat area18. The main concept behind this interpretation was that the habitat of the Banat Lowlands is optimal for a settled indigenous population, and less suitable for nomadic Sarmatian commu‑ nities comprised of cattle and horses breeders. It is obvious that the passage from Ammianus Marcellinus, in which the Sarmatians were presented as a nomadic population, was adopted 8 ÐORDEVIĆ 1996, 42. The author presents a synthesis of the PhD thesis by Natalija Simovljević (Banat u doba rimskog Oastva), hitherto unpublished. N. Simovljević has published however the Sarmatian cemetery from Vršac–Crvenka along with other similar discoveries form this area, see SIMOVLJEVIĆ 1957. 9 BEJAN 1981A; BEJAN 1981B; BEJAN 1983; BEJAN 1995; BEJAN/BENEA 1985. 10 BENEA1996. 11 BOZU 1990. 12 BOZU/EL SUSI 1987. 13 BENEA 1996A, 121–122. 14 SZENTMIKLOSI/TIMOC 2005; TIMOC/SZENTMIKLOSI 2008. 15 BENEA1996A, 114. 16 BENEA 1996A, 114. 17 GUDEA/MOȚU 1983, 199–200; BEJAN 1995; BENEA 1996A; BEJAN 1998; MARE 2004; MICLE 2008 (selective bibliography). 18 D. Benea has pointed out that similar sites in Serbia and Hungary dated to the same period were ascribed to the Sarmatian population. According to the same author the difficulties of ethnic ascription in this case are due to the fact that no Sarmatian or indeed no Daco‑Roman rural settlement has ever been completely researched, see BENEA 1996A, 115. Post Roman and Sarmatian Pottery Workshops in Banat 69 uncritically by Romanian researchers19. As