Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 30/1. (2010)

Articles

ANEW BRICKKILN DISCOVERED IN THE ROMAN SETTLEMENT FROM CRISTE§TI

NICOLETA MAN-DANIEL ClOATÄ-CORALLA CHINAN

Mure? County Museum, Tärgu Mure?

Keywords: brick kiln, stamped tiles, Roman Age

The Roman settlement from Criste?ti is known as one of the greatest centres of ceramic production in Roman Dacia.1 The pottery manufactured here is outstanding as quantity and also due to its wide range of shapes, which implicitly point to the various functionalities it once had. The 6 furnaces, together with the abundant pottery material and the numerous moulds discovered in time,1 2 reveal a real local pottery ‘industry’ which covered not only the needs of the settlement, but spread out to the neighbouring zone, too.

In 2007, the archaeologists from the Mure? County Museum suspended the ongoing works for the construction of a car park, less than 1 km far from the Roman settlement from Criste?ti (PI. 1/1). The intervention led to the rescue of a brick kiln, contemporary to the settlement.3 This dating is confirmed by the technique used to build it (with analogies in the Roman world, as proved below) and the materials found in association with it. It was recovered almost entirely, apart from the front wall and the praefurnium. The upper part of the kiln had been destroyed in ancient times, after the retrieval of the last batch of bricks and the abandonment of the installation.

At the moment we noticed the remains of the kiln, the north-eastern part of the hill had already been levelled, to create a flat surface for the construction so the forepart and the praefurnium of the kiln were dug by the machines. In the excavated soil we did not find many traces of pottery or other installations, which could have been destroyed before our arrival.

1 Floca 1937,12; Ferenczi 1929,216-217; Filimon 1940,3-8; Popescu 1956,119; Protase, D-Zrínyi A.-Dankanics A., Raport preliminar asupra säpäturilor de la Cristepi, manuscript in the archive of MCM; Zrínyi 1977, 94, fig. XLV; Husar-Man 1996, 22-23.

2 Pop 1994, 42.

3 The literature about the pottery kilns from the Roman provinces and also the ones extra provinciam is generous; therefore we would like to enumerate only the more popular and quoted works that regard situations closer to our discovery. Berciu 1949, 180-188; Protase-Dänilä 1965, 583-587; Petre 1968, 133-146; Popilian 1969, 167-169; Floca et al. 1970, 38; Marghitan 1971, 531-535; Duhamel 1975, 12-20; Henning 1977, 190-193; Gudea 1978, 135-147; Cätina? 1980, 81-84; Benea 1982, 22-40; Lipovan 1983, 301-312; Alicu 1984, 467-470; Le Ny 1988; Gudea 1989, 194-198; Mitrofan 1991, 173-200; Mitrofan 1993; Moga, 1996,9-16; Mu$eteanu 1996, 17-22; Matei 1997, 367-400; Popilian 1997, 7-21; Ardevan 2001, 319-329; Gaiu 2001, 161-198.

MARISIA XXX. p. 85-94