Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 30/1. (2010)
Articles
Archaeological Data Regarding the Medieval History of the Unitarian Church in Adämu$ 177 Interpretation of the excavation The church (Fig. 2) Our research proved the existence of at least two separate medieval building periods. 1st period (14th century). The church’s oldest existing part is the northern wall section between the sanctuary and the diagonal buttress. This early church had a 3 m long and 2-3 m (?) wide sacristy that we also managed to document. We couldn’t identify the early church’s sanctuary wall; we can only presume that it could not have been far away from the current one. The nave’s length was approximately 8.5 m. We unfortunately cannot define the time the first church was built for lack of essential proof. The graves dating from before the building have no grave-goods and no other material linked to this earlier phase has been found. No carvings, not even in secondary position have turned up. It is certain that by the time of the settlement’s first mentioning in the 15th century, the early church must have been standing. In accordance with this fact, we date the earlier church to the 14th century. 2nd, late Gothic period (16th century). After the early sanctuary was demolished, a bigger, polygonal sanctuary was built; its groined vault was taken down at the end of the 19th century.15 Simultaneously, the earlier sacristy was enlarged; however we do not know its exact size as we have not been able to explore its eastern wall. It may have ended at the first buttress of the northern sanctuary wall, this fact being suggested by the buttress’s unusual position compared to its southern pair. If our presumption is correct, its size would have been 4.50 x 3.50 m. We have not been able to establish where the groundwork continuing westward above the sacristy’s northern wall ends, therefore we don’t know the size and function of the inner space that it delimited. We cannot prove, but we also cannot exclude the possibility that it was used as an 15Kelemen 1977, 233.
