K. Palágyi Sylvia szerk.: Balácai Közlemények 2005/9. (Veszprém, 2005)
GÁBOR, OLIVÉR: Suburbanum Sopianarum and Roman Villas around Sopianae
and flourishing, in the 4 th century, being the administrative centre of the province of Valeria, it should have been even more built up. This has proof from the excavations. In the territory of the town we can mostly experience reconstructions of formerly existing buildings while the emphasis was reached to the cemetery outside the town. Chapels, cellae memoriae, burial chambers are being found in the early Christian cemetery like as if this area had not only been place of burials but the scene of everyday religious life, too. We can see a parallel example in the case of Petra in Jordan, which became poor by the 4 th century, where the Mount of Aaron became a place of pilgrimage. 16 Nevertheless the early Christian cemetery itself is of immense size. Its northern border is the line of the cathedral, its western border is also the western border of Szt. István Square, its southern border is Apáca Street while the eastern is Széchenyi Square - beginning of Király Street. All this is outside of the town of Sopianae. (The population enclosed by the 4 th century walls buried their deads inside the town in some cases but the location of these graves is necessarily different from Roman age rules.) So far can suppose the presence of four different „Churches" in the early Christian cemetery. The first is the central area marked with the burial chambers. The second one is the bunch of graves around Székesfehérvár Street where a Jewish ring came to light from a grave. The third is the church in Apáca Street and the graves around it (according to the very bad state of the bones, a special habit of eating certain foods may be suspected here). The fourth is the part showing barbarian - Germanic attributes in the yard of Nagy Lajos Secondary School. So the inhabitants of the town used the cemetery, outside the town, as a place of burials as well as that of their daily worships. (For the rich literature of the early Christian cemetery. 17 ) The cemetery in Czinderi Street excavated in 2002 is also from the 4 th century but is unlike the known, early Christian cemetery. Between the two cemeteries, there was the Ancient town itself. In the „new" cemetery, more than one-hundred graves were excavated but this is by no means the totality. We reached the eastern and northern edge of the cemetery and did not find more graves there, but towards the west and south, we may suppose around as many graves that may be excavated in the future. The excavation of the cemetery was lead by G. Kárpáti. 18 Further roman graves around Sopianae probably connected to little suburban settlements: Szigeti u., Kiskőszeg u., Aranyhegy, Makárhegy, Gyárváros, RácvárosÚttörő u., Rácváros-Repülőtér, Rudas L. u., Basamalom u., Űszögpuszta, Diósdűlő, Árpád u., Nagy Jenő u., Cserkút, Tettye u., Budai városrész, Mohácsi u., Zsolnay u., Attila u. 19 Town Gate or Amphitheatre In the western side of the Medieval town-wall of Pécs, in present Kórház Square, there is an unreasonable recess, that curving the line of the wall inside breaks its continuous bend. On the other side of the present street, there is a similar recess (toward Rét Street) that makes the whole shape almost a circle. According to suppositions such a concave recess
