INTRODUCTION
None of the regions of Ancient Dacia harbour so many important relics as do the Şureanu Mountains (known in archaeological literature as the Orăştie Mountains). Spreading at the foot of haughty peaks, on the flat hilltops and long crests, Dacian villages and fortifications are equally amazing to a casual visitor and an expert archaeologist, impressing by their well-thought emplacement, variety of forms and monumental character that blend into the eternal beauty of a serene alpine setting.
Most of the civil constructions, which had been built of perishable materials, did not survive, and so an inexpert eye can now hardly imagine their configuration and number. Others instead, entirely or partially built of stone blocks or provided with massive walls, have been sufficiently well preserved to offer a glimpse of their former magnificence.
These monuments bear witness to a flourishing Dacian civilisation, superior in many respects to the civilisations developed by other ancient European peoples in areas lying outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire.
In the mountains of Orăştie, one can see some of the most remarkable achievements of the Dacian civilisation. A comparatively small area, much more densely populated in ancient times than it is now, reveals a most uncommon concentration of precious relics of the past.
Modern research has brought to light civil settlements and outlying homesteads, workshops of various kinds, roads cutting across mountain slopes and along river courses, terra-cotta pipes for conveying drinking water, water tanks, drain ditches, the largest and most numerous sacred precincts in Dacia, imposing fortifications, from the traditional ones, made of timber and earth embankments to huge strongholds girdled by walls built of squared stones.
All these sites have yielded a large amount of archaeological material of extreme diversity: pottery, iron tools and implements, weapons, bronze and glass objects, coins, ornaments made of precious metal, etc.
[Click on the map locations for futher information.]
All these relics of the past testify to the existence of a flourishing economy that relied on extensive use of iron tools and on active exchanges with near-by or more remote regions of Europe, in particular with the Greek cities on Pontus Euxinus and with the Roman Empire.
Still the defence system of the Dacian capital was only a part, though the strongest one, of the intricate defensive arrangements of the Dacian state.
The area was, during both the first (a.D. 101-102) and the second (105-106) wars with the Roman Empire, the scene of fierce battles. It is only by getting to know the economic strength of Dacia and its skilful blending of natural defences, provided by the rugged mountain terrain, with an impressive system of fortifications that one can have an explanation for the long duration of the military operations and the protracted resistance put up by the Dacian people in their determination to preserve their freedom.
An acquaintance with the sites and with the sites and with the various accomplishments of the Dacian civilisation will enable the visitor to get an objective insight into the level of development that the Dacians had reached by the time of that decisive confrontation with Imperial Rome. This conclusion emerges all the more clearly from a comparison with the levels of development attained by other European peoples at that time.
[ Next Page: COSTEŞTI - CETĂŢUIE ]