Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 30/1. (2010)
Articles
Women in a Man’s World? Female Related Artefacts from the Camps of Dacia 129 impossible to determine a strict chronological and typological evolution of material culture in these two centuries, not to mention the fact that the artefacts used in this period had a very long period of usage. So, many objects found in military forts without the precise indication of the archaeological context, were dated generally to the 2nd and 3rd century (Appendix). The native population of a province usually preserved its traditional habits, ways of dressing, its typical accessories, jewelleries during the Roman occupation. These typical objects ease the ethnical correlation of some type of artefacts,13 thus allowing the formulation of some kind of social conclusion concerning the nature of relation between a soldier and a woman in a fort.14 In the case of Dacia the original native population, the Dacians, mysteriously disappeared or withdrew in the background after the war led by Trajan against them, in 105-106 AD. Thus, in the lack of supportive artefacts we don’t know if there existed any kind of social interaction between the soldiers and local, native population. Determining the sex of a small find can be made on the basis of the grave goods found in women inhumation burials as well. In Dacia, the rite of the inhumation burial, for a certain reason, has never become fashionable, so the majority of the graves are incineration graves.15 The correlation of a special type of artefacts to a gender is nearly impossible in these conditions. In plus, there are very little Roman cemeteries known, researched and published in Dacia. Although in the Roman archaeology the military space is the most researched domain in Romania, only a few of the researched complexes were investigated properly and carefully. There are only a few sites where barracks were researched and published.16 Therefore we do not dispose of precise information concerning the inner organization of a camp and micro-social world of the soldiers within a fort. The publications of small finds recovered from the Dacian camps are very scarce, too. In the case of many camps, the published artefacts are usually selected and have only an illustrative purpose; the finds in most of the cases, are not correlated to the find spots.17 Still there are some forts that provided bigger quantity of material and made possible to observe the distribution of them. We have to mention here the fort of Buciumi, Ili§ua, Ca$eiu and Giläu where the excavations have been carried out more carefully or a part of the objects have been analyzed and published - it is the case of the jewelleries coming from the camp of Cä§eiu, Giläu or Ili§ua -,18 allowing thus a more precise record of the artefacts. Methodology Relating an artefact to a certain gender in the Roman material culture is very problematic and very subjective. It is almost impossible to apply objective and clear criteria concerning the gender related artefacts. Observing the presence of women in the Dacian forts I based my research on those small find types that are traditionally considered as typical female related objects such as: 13 In the western gender studies usually the hand-made pottery as opposite to the typical Roman tableware is used as ethnicity marker (Allison 2006, 350). 14 As W. S. Hanson mentions the original native inhabitants of an area could be another category of civilian population that could have interacted with the military sphere (Hanson 2005, 304). The correlation of certain artefacts to the inhabitants would suggest that soldiers could have had their concubine or slaves from the local population. 15 Damian et al. 2008 (Alburnus Maior); Protase 2002 (Obreja). 16 Chirilä et al. 1972 (Buciumi); Isac 2003 (Cäseiu); Gudea 1997 (Porolissum); Bondoc-Gudea 2009 (Räcari). 17 Bondoc-Gudea 2009 (Räcari); Protase-Zrinyi 1994 (Bräncovene$ti); Protase et al. 2008 (Gherla); Bärbulescu 1997, Abb. 27/3 (Potaissa). 18 Isac 1999 (Cäseiu and Giläu); Isac-Gaiu 2006 (Ili$ua).
