Arrabona - Múzeumi közlemények 13. (Győr, 1971)

Gabler D.: Research in the Canabe of Arrabona

of decay and the reconstruction of some walls. The charred remains of the wooden beams of the earliest trussing have been found in sections 1, 6 and 7. The roofing was not done with bricks but with decaying material (shingles, possibly thatch) most probably, since very few roof-tiles have been uncovered (none of them stamped). The entrance was from the south, the parts of thresholds found in sections 6 and 7 belonged to two doorways probably (the safety of the city gas lines prevented us from uncovering the portion between them). The archaeological material found under the earliest floor levels of the edifice (La Graufesenque and Late Banassac sigillatae, bowls with mottled painting, pottery with striped painting and grooved ornament) dates the construction to the era of Hadrian; most of the Pannonian camps were built of stone at that time. The row of stone found in section 5 (Fig. 15) is roughly contemporary with the edifice, as it is proved both by the stratigraphical data and by the finds (Fig. 17). We may surmise that the row of stones applied as the base of a wooden construction. ' The single objects of settlement south of the named building is situated among numerous fillings with pebbles : the ruin of a house with a frame structure and loamed walls. At the edge of the decayed, solid, at places charcoaled clay layer there ran the stripe of a rotten timber, deepened into the soil (Fig. 21) ; in the middle of the western part the charred remains of major supporting or bearing piles have been found (the piles may have been renewed several times). The frame house of a visible length of about 15 metres and of a width of 5 metres used to be covered with bricks principally. The archaeological material found below (Fig. 20) dates the building to Hadrian's period or somewhat later. Presumably it has served economic purposes in a close connection with the stone building. Also to the west of the main building there may have stood a framed, cob-walled edifice (Fig. 11, period HI/IV) ; the structure of its foundation could be observed in section 4 (Fig. 22). The decay level of this building is marked by a stratum of mud-flakes with branch and twig impressions, just as it is the case with the large edifice. Its chronology is defined by the fast that its builders have taken the large house into consideration already (its level was found above the earliest walking level of the latter), whereas its decay level contained Lezoux sigillata pieces of the Antonine period (Cinnamus circle). In the fourth period only minor rises of level were executed and in room I a small oven was constructed of adobe bricks (Fig. 23). The plenty of iron tools found near the oven, the cinder-pit, together with the large quantity of slag and iron lumps in the planishing stratum allude to a smithy. At the entrance of the workshop the fragment of a small altar (Fig. 25) has been uncovered. The constructions of the third and the fourth period were closed by a rubble layer with mud-flakes, 50 to 60 cm thick, whereas the forr levels were covered by a burnt layer or charred main beams, respectively (Figs 26, 27). The impressed pieces of mud-flakes are derived from the collapse of the ceiling and partly of the side walls. The destruction was caused by fire, the date of which is defined by coins and sigillatae unequivocally (Fig. 28). The layer of the Antonine period may be connected with the ravages of the Markomannic wars, the traces of which have been observed at the excavations of several Pannonian camps and settlements already. The destruction of Arrabona was motivated by the special significance of its camp, as it was garrisoned by the strongest auxiliary unit of Pannónia Superior. Among the constructions after the war (Fig. 29, period V) a longitudinal wall between rooms I and II, and an ascending wall on the western portion of the southern outer wall, made with the opus spicatum technique, are the most conspicuous (they may supplant earlier sun-dried walls). The date of the construction of the new stretches of walls is defined by the archaeological material uncovered below and above the respective floor levels (below there are Lezoux sigillatae, above a coin of Commodus and a Rheinzabern sigillata of the Severan age). On one of the new, stamped floor levels, in room III, a baker's oven has been uncovered, with a regular round ground-plan (Fig. 41), built of sun-dried bricks. Above the destruction level one finds a few cm thick layer of mud-flakes (Fig. 33), following the southern outer wall of the building for about 160 cm and closed by a charred wooden beam. This one, deepened into the ground, may have been the basis of a terrace, having a plastered wattle fence. Outside of the edifice an adobe construction made its appearance in section 3 (Fig. 29), above the layer of large destruction. A similar but more decayed one has been found in section 4 too. The buildings of the fifth period are covered by a rather thick burnt layer at places (Fig. 4), showing that the building or a part of it may have been destroyed during the third century. 53