Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 31/1. (2011)

Articles

156

I. V. Ferencz-C. Dima

environment where the vessel was preserved. Furthermore, the vessel was broken in our days, probably damaged by the discoverers and in the time while it was taken over by the museum. Because of the recent hole in the wall of the vessel the upper part of the vessel felt downwards, as a consequence now the vessel is tilt.2

Fig. 1. The iron vessel from Sarmizegetusa Regia (drawings by C. Filcea).

The technology of metal vessel manufacturing by junction or by strips is not an innovation of the Late Iron Age, since several big vessels made with the same technique but in bronze date from the Early Iron Age (Gogáltan 1991). The novelty is given by the application of the technique to iron, as the bronze works are easier to carry out. The complexity of the craft and the artistic value of these objects are emphasized by the disks with zoomorphic and vegetal representations discovered at Piatra Rosie (Daicoviciu 1954, 119—121, fig. 40; Florea-Suciu 1995, 47-61; Florea-Ferencz 2007, 47-53).

Fig. 2. Distributions of the iron vessels in Dacia.

2 It was the reason why the vessel was subject to physical and chemical analyses, which indicated that that there are enough metallic cores for restoration. The optical and microscopic examination, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, and scanning electron microscopy were made at the laboratory of “Dimitrie Gusti” Village Museum from Bucharest by Dr. Vivian Dragomir. Because of the inaccessible financial involvements of these types of restorations the artifact is in great danger of self-destruction.