Gehl, Hans - Ciubotă, Viorel (szerk.): Relaţii interetnice în zona de contact româno-maghiaro-ucraineană din secolul al XVIII-lea până în prezent (Satu Mare, 1999)
The biggest pottery production cetre from the Barbarian Europe. Pottery kilns belonging to the Free Dacians of Medieşu Aurit- Şuculeu
Medieşu Aurit geomagnetic technique, with a Barrington Grade 601-2 Fluxgate magnetometer. These measurements brought out strong circular magnetic anomalies perhaps corresponding to pottery kilns (about 200 in number), and other smaller anomalies that could be pits or traces of adjacent structures of the pottery workshops. The kilns align on two parallel rows, arranged on both sides of a small terrace head flanked to the east and west by two valleys. There are also several grouped kilns (of 3 up to 8 kilns) that might have one common service pit. The archaeological excavations were resumed in 2011. The main aim of the research was to check the data provided by the geomagnetic measurements. Two surfaces of 10 X 10 m were opened to the north of the archaeological reservation, these surfaces having been dug in places with strong geomagnetic signals (the alleged kilns). Two pottery workshops with two kilns each where pottery was fired were discovered on the places of the magnetic signals. Thus, the geomagnetic research and the almost 200 kilns spread on the surface of 18 hectares passed the validity test. The surface of the site has not been entirely measured to date, so the number of kilns will certainly increase in the future. Excavations continued in 2012 and 2013 and there occurred at least two phases of development in the settlement. The wells, the surface constructions identified through rows of post holes could be linked to the pottery production, but the storage pits and sunken dwellings point to a double usage of the site, namely for living and for industrial production. The site from Medieşu Aurit - Şuculeu was thus an industrial settlement where the main concern of the inhabitants was the production of pottery. The current state of knowledge does not show exactly when the pottery production from Medieşu Aurit began and when it was abandoned (it certainly worked in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D.), but given the number of kilns, we can assume it was the largest pottery centre of Europe during the Barbarian times. The ethnic indicators are the archaic hand shaped Dacian vessel forms with socketed belts that were laid in kilns together with the storage vessels. The Dacian potters supplied with their production a large geographical area, as the storage pottery shapes from Medieşu Aurit were found in Vandalic houses dating since the Marcomannic wars. The pottery centre from Medieşu Aurit is likely to have had a significant contribution in taking the potter’s wheel up by the Vandals as well as in the spreading of the pottery made with this technology to the north of the Carpathians, in what is today southern Poland. Ateliere de ars ceramică în poziţie stratigrafică, cercetate în 2013. Гончарні майстерні в стратиграфічному положенні, досліджені у 2013 році. Workshops for firing pottery in stratigraphic position, under research in 2013.
