Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 33/4. (2013)
Articles
FAMILY FUNERARY MONUMENTS IN ROMAN DACIA ÁGOTA FERENCZ'MÁTÉFI Keywords: Roman, grave, rite, tumulus, ring, graveyard Cuvinte cheie: roman, mormant, rit, tumul, ring, clädire funerarä Kulcsszavak: római, sír, rítus, tumulusz, kőgyűrű, temetkezési épület The family funerary monuments in Roman Dacia know a wide variety. In the actual phase of the research, more than 805 graveyards, tumuli, rings and stone groundworks have been published in the archeological literature. In this paper stands a morphological analysis, a study of their rite, and the quest of the Mala-Kopasnica-Sase type graves. The main question is, whether these structures were really the cenotaph of an entire family, or there are some sepulcher types, that were individually used. By the statistics one trend seems to excel: never appeared more than four grave in a family funerary monument, only in graveyards, but ifit did, it can be considered to be extremely rare. The curiosity about family funerary monuments was awakened when the first structures were found, and despite there were some who tried to give a summary, today a revise is required. New questions must be answered on the basis of new view-points. Generally said with every published family funerary monument a different view-point system appears as default. In this paper stands the result of a detailed morphological analysis, a study of rite, and the quest of the Mala-Kopasnica-Sase type graves. We believe it is important to have a better understanding of family funerary monuments, to propose a view-point system, that covers all the existent structures and at the same time to have an easier way to find analogies in the future. At the basis of this research stand all the publications about family funerary monuments in Roman Dacia, an investigation that at the end can provide us quantified data. With the method of creating statistics, some particularities will be shown, some trends will excel. In morphological point of view family funerary monuments covers more forms. This paper tries to present all the present forms in Roman Dacia. The forms covered by the term family funerary monuments are: graveyards, rings, and tumuli, some stone groundwork can be also related to family funerary monuments. In Dacia at 20 settlements 29 sites more than 805 family funerary monuments have been identified. For more than half of it we don’t have enough information to compare, whether they were robbed or not yet excavated, or discovered with other methods. For example at Ampelum,1 Casolt2 and Calbor3 the soil-heap above the tumuli was so well preserved, that these were easily identified, even the linear structure of the cemetery, while only a few were researched with archaeological methods. At Alburnus Maior-Täul Secuilor four graveyards and five rings were discovered with the help of geophysics.4 Another five graveyards are known from inscriptions.5 These, the unpublishedand the still not discovered structures can change the results concluded in this stage of the research. The background of the research The first tumuli and family funerary monuments were registered in the late 19th century by Béla Lukács and Gábor Téglás. From the earlier period other traveller’s descriptions are also available, but G. Téglás and B. Lukács were the first, who made archeological research in the field. They registered first the roman cemeteries at Ampelum (Zlatna-Poduri/Botes), made the first archeological excavations and registered several previously 1 Floca 1941a; Floca 1941b; Lukács 1879a; Lukács 1879b; Pescaru et al. 2004; Téglás 1890. 2 Floca 1941a; Macrea 1957; Macrea 1959; Macrea-Berciu 1955; Macrea et al. 1959; Protase 1971. 3 Macrea 1957; Macrea et al. 1959. 4 Scurtu 2004. 5 Diaconescu 2003, 288-292. MARISIA XXXIII, 2013, p. 65-74.
