| Printable Version of Topic
Click here to view this topic in its original format |
| WorldWar2.ro Forum > Ancient, Medieval and Modern History > The Dacians |
| Posted by: Imperialist January 25, 2006 08:41 am |
| If there are some foreigners here interested about the subject, they can watch 2 romanian documentaries with english subtitles on the net. The translation is moderately good, there are some minor mistakes, but I guess it would do. Go on this page: http://www.tvr.ro/webcast/inregistrari.php# The short documentaries are titled Enigme in Carpati, but only the ones under 22-01-2006 and 19-01-2006 are about the Dacians. Note: apparently only the flash player can open them, for me the RealPlayer download didnt work |
| Posted by: cnflyboy2000 February 06, 2006 04:17 pm |
| Hey, thanks!!! great link, for Romanian news in English! , and the Flash player works great. Unfortunately, I saw this post too late to catch the Dacians, which I would be interested in.....it looks like their archive only covers the current week? |
| Posted by: horia February 08, 2006 01:30 pm |
| yesterday a friend of mine who work on Sacele city hall (a small town near Brasov) told me thet a team from Discovery Chanel came and ask for aprroval to dig in a site called Bunloc. Thei believe that there is a part from an ancient grat wall similar to chinese wall. Personal i worked on an arheological site (Racos)and very ofen visit such place but I have never heard about this wall. Those anybody knew more? |
| Posted by: cnflyboy2000 February 08, 2006 04:18 pm | ||
[SIZE=7] Well, I don't know about that one, of course...sounds very interesting. I did see an amazing site once while driving between Sibiu and Pitesti, where the road follows the Olt River closely (Rte 7?) Somewhere above Ramnicu Valcea, maybe near where 7a turns off, there was what I think may be a Roman watch tower? Does anyone know anything about this? I was amazed, as it was just sitting there, in pretty good shape, not looking disturbed.but obviously ancient...completely accessable by a short walk off the road. It was a rather isolated stretch of the highway..not so much traveled, it seemed. But, it was like in that short walk, you went back 2000 years or so...the tower had a perfect view, up and down the river, was sturdily built of hand layed, unmortared stone block...up on the high bank. It was small, but would have been a formidable strongpoint, and looked to command the whole valley. You could still see some battlements, archers' salients and so forth...amazing! I could only imagine the ancient Dacians slugging it out with the Romans on this site...it was eery to me. I couldn't find any info on it....does anybody know anything about this small but amazing site? It should be protected, imo, or perhaps it is now. |
| Posted by: Carol I February 08, 2006 05:05 pm | ||
I know of a reconstructed castrum north of Râmnicu Vâlcea: http://www.romaniatravel.com/index.php?lng=en&tree=9#2.  http://www.dacii.ro/revista/cinci/cinci.htm#arutela |
| Posted by: horia February 08, 2006 05:12 pm |
| Carol I, on the link you share to us is not mentioned the Racos site, and is very sad because is considered to be first after Sarmizegetusa. Is an impresiv religious-miltary and social complex. more about this site here: http://www.dacii.ro/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=745 |
| Posted by: Carol I February 08, 2006 05:26 pm | ||
Dacians are not my particular interest, so I do not know much about the Racoş site. I have however remembered seeing Arutela once upon a time when I have travelled along the Olt Valley. Your link is to the site wherefrom I have taken the photo of the Arutela castrum: http://www.dacii.ro (it's a pity they do not have an English version; I think Flyboy would have been interested in it). |
| Posted by: Imperialist February 09, 2006 03:21 pm |
| OK |
| Posted by: Imperialist February 09, 2006 03:25 pm |
| OK |
| Posted by: Imperialist February 09, 2006 04:22 pm |
| OK |
| Posted by: Imperialist February 09, 2006 04:24 pm |
| OK |
| Posted by: Victor February 09, 2006 05:03 pm |
| Ten posts were deleted. Imperialist, the excessive posting of images from one website or book is forbidden according to the http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=27. Those who want to see more photos can follow your link. |
| Posted by: Imperialist February 09, 2006 05:13 pm | ||
Yeah, but you apply it in a discretionary fashion. How many images did you delete here: http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=1636 Nevermind, you ruined an interesting thread, I'll erase everything. Lets keep it clean here, we dont want to break the Forum-guidelines-applied-outside-certain-threads.  |
| Posted by: Victor February 09, 2006 06:21 pm |
| You are acting childish. First of all, the forum rules were updated to include the limiting of images posted from a source in June 2005, six months after the topic you indicated. Second, the images you posted were hotlinks from another site. They were already online and, as a matter courtesy, it was normal to let the members see the images on the original site. You should have posted several and then give the link to it. This is why I left a part of the photos, before you deleted your own posts. Third, I suggest you keep the smart guy remarks to yourself in the future. |
| Posted by: Imperialist February 09, 2006 06:53 pm | ||
They were beautiful pictures and relevant to the topic. I spent time selecting and linking them + posting the explaining text. I did some work for that (not hard, but passionate), when I could have given a simple link. Why? I just wanted to make this thread about the Dacians interesting and show something nice to people who are not familiar with the subject but stumble on it here on the Forum. Talk about childish, right. You are right, I'll never do that again. You came, you saw, you deleted. Congrats. Good job. Hooray.  |
| Posted by: Agarici February 13, 2006 03:04 pm | ||
It could be either a fragment of the murus dacicus (Dacian wall), which was approximately 3 m wide, or a part of Hadrian’s limes - an extended system of walls, forts and garrisons built during the emperor’s reign, which protected large parts of the Roman Empire frontiers, from Dacia to Britain, and which passed near Râsnov. |
| Posted by: RonHood March 24, 2006 10:37 pm |
| I am new to this group and am excited to find a discussion of ancient Romania in this thread. I have been trying to find a site similar to the one cnflyboy2000 posted about because I need such an ancient ruin for the introduction to a documentary/educational video we will be filming in Romania this coming May or June. You can check my profile for a link to our site. Basically we are a Coeur D' Alene Idaho (USA) based video production company. Our videos deal mostly with wilderness skills and survival and have been featured on Discovery Channel and other major outlets many times. For the last year we have been working on reconstructive archaeology where we reconstruct ancient ways of accomplishing tasks. We have won many awards for our productions. Currently I am working on a video dealing with ancient iron making and weapons. I've been trying to locate sites that might have held ancient forges and smelters for the making of iron and basic steel. In those times of conflict between the Dacians and Romans hundreds of thousands of steel and bronze tipped arrows were shot. That steel had to have come from someplace. Generally it was local smelters. I have not had much luck with my letters and emails to museums in Bucharest so I thought perhaps someone here can help me with our project. At least I might be able to find some leads. We are hoping to film some samples of ancient weapons in Bucharest and discuss the kinds of weapons in use in ancient Romania. We are also in need of some sites as described above. Our travel plans are flexible at this moment and any assistance would be greatly appreciated. I have two years of Latin but somehow the language seems to have changed from what I remember of those classes some 40 years ago so my attempts to read Romanian sites have met with little success  There is more to this project but I didn't want my first post to be overly long. Thank you for considering my questions. Ron Hood |
| Posted by: dragos03 March 24, 2006 11:16 pm |
| The nucleus of the Dacian kingdom was in the Orastie Mountains (part of the Sureanu Mountains). The ruins of the Dacian capital and several important strongholds are all located there, in a rather small area. I think there are also remains of the smelters within these fortresses, so you should definetly go there. The area is still isolated and the mountains and forests saw little changes since the times when the Dacians were still inhabiting them. You will need a real off-road car to get to these places. |
| Posted by: RonHood March 24, 2006 11:29 pm |
| Thank you Dragos, My Terra server does not show the Orastie Mountains but it does show the city of Orastie. Can you tell me how far, and in what direction these mountains are from Orastie? The satellite images are not clear but there appear to be structures in the mountains a few KM NorthEast of the Orastie. Thank you for the help! Ron |
| Posted by: dragos03 March 24, 2006 11:39 pm |
| The mountains are directly south of Orastie, at around 40-50 km. All of the Dacian strongholds are on top of mountains in the area. There is a road from Orastie to the ruins of the Dacian capital, Sarmisegetuza Regia. I think that some of the other places are only accesible by foot. Check out this link: http://www.cimec.ro/arheologie/sarmi/1eng.htm |
| Posted by: RonHood March 25, 2006 01:22 am |
| Good information, Thanks! I found these photos http://stutzfamily.com/TravPix/Romania/romania3.html and this http://www.geocities.com/cogaionon/pictures.htm It looks very extensive. The area is similar in geography to the area of Idaho in which I live. This tells me that we need to find someplace nearby to stay. Hateg or Hunedoara appear to be the only local areas. Any thoughts? I haven't found any references to the smelters you mentioned. Are they in the sites that require a pack trip? For our purposes any ancient smelter would work as an example. The ruins can even be something like those mentioned earlier in this thread. The concept is pretty open at this point in time and we can retrain our sights on other topics related to Romanian martial history as we zero in on the actual smelters. Thanks Ron |
| Posted by: dragos03 March 25, 2006 01:37 am |
| The photos from the first link are not from the Dacian capital but from Ulpia Traiana Sarmisegetusa, which was the new capital built by the Romans after they destroyed the old Dacian one. These two are not in the same area. If you want to see the Dacian one, you can stay in Orastie. You could also find a place to stay on the road between Orastie and the ruins. If you are granted the necessary approvals, you may be able to stay at the archeological station at Sarmisegetuza Regia. I don't know for sure where the smelters are located. I assume some of them were in the capital, which was the largest Dacian city. |
| Posted by: Victor March 25, 2006 06:51 am |
| An Internet search yielded several results for that area. According to this site: http://www.gk.ro/sarmizegetusa/dave/sarmis.htm there were three big workshops in Sarmisegetusa, one to extract iron from the ore and two foundries, as well as several smaller workshops. In Hunedoara, near the medieval castle, there are also several ancient iron ore ovens, according to this site: http://www.dacii.ro/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=483 I will start looking through several books and see if I can find more details, but the best idea would be into the Orastie Mountains, necause that is where the highest concentration of Dacian ruins is. Other archaelogical sites pale in comparison with it. |
| Posted by: RonHood March 25, 2006 07:46 pm |
| Thank you Victor, I was unable to find that information because of my inability to write (or speak) Romanian. None of the commercial web translators (i.e. Babel Fish) can translate those pages but the clues you offer have put Sarmisegetusa at the top of my list. Now if I can just figure out how to say that name! It's interesting how life moves in circles. Back in '64 I lived in Sinop Turkey for a year. During my tenure there I spent a considerable amount of time researching Mithridates VI Eupator. I also managed to obtain a few antiquities related to his time. Dragos03 suggested that there was a connection between Burebistas and Mithridates during that ancient time. It would be delightful to walk on the ground that might have been the site of a meeting of two great powers of an ancient age. Though I have as yet found no evidence that such a meeting had occurred it seems evident that there was a significant amount of commerce between the two powers. I'd imagine that more about this connection could be found in Constanta. I remember standing on the Quay at Sinop, looking across the Black sea and saying to myself, "Someday I'm going over there to learn more about those ancient times". It looks like that time is here. It's a little wierd as after all of these years of travel and exploration I feel a sort of "Calling" to explore this topic. It looks like I'll need to find someone who can guide us at the Sarmisegetusa site so we can find the workshops. If anyone can help me locate such a contact I'd appreciate anything you can do that might help me in this quest. Once again, Thank you! Ron |
| Posted by: Imperialist March 25, 2006 09:38 pm |
| Why did the Dacians keep raiding Moesia? The raids were undecisive and stirred trouble with the romans. What made them so confident they can take on the Roman Empire? |
| Posted by: RonHood March 26, 2006 07:36 am |
| In "THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF DACIA" by Endre Tóth he states that "The remains of an iron smelter have been uncovered at Gyalár (Ghelar), in the vicinity of Alsótelek. From what little I've found I surmise that this is in Hunedoara County but Alsótelek appears to be something called "Comuna Teliucu Inferior"... Is this a place on the map? If I travel to this area is there someone with whom I should speak or some agency that might be able to offer some help? Just as a crazy thought... Has anyone heard of someone in Romania who has tried to smelt iron in a primitive smelter? I've done it and a few others in the US have but it would be great to keep this entirely in Romania. It looks like the guidance I've received here has brought me to the location I need. For that I am sincerely grateful. I have no idea why the Dacians kept raiding Moesia. I've wondered about the reasons for war many times since I returned from Vietnam. Ron |
| Posted by: Victor March 26, 2006 08:03 am |
| Probably the most indicated would be the people at the Department of Ancient History and Archaelogy of the University of Bucharest, but unfortunately they don't provide too many contact details: http://www.unibuc.ro/en/catd_hciaa_en There is also the possibility to contact these guys: http://www.dacia.org/2006/01e.htm, but, IMO, they should be taken with a grain of salt (they have some very debatable theories regarding Dacian history). Nevertheless they probably havesome contacts in the area you are interested in. As for Teliucu Inferior, it is just South of Hunedoara. See here: http://www.hartionline.ro/ro/harta/d5.html |
| Posted by: Imperialist March 26, 2006 08:41 am | ||
Yes, on the link I placed in the first post of this thread there was a streaming movie that showed a team of romanian and foreign scientists (I dont remember for sure, I think british) recreating ancient pottery and metal works. So though I dont have a clear answer, names places or contacts, I can tell you for sure someone did this stuff in Romania too. |
| Posted by: mabadesc March 26, 2006 04:03 pm | ||
I know this is off-topic but I just have to ask. Were you part of the combat troops in Vietnam or were you non-combat? My bet is, you were combat (just a hunch). Also, if you could just give us a one-sentence description of how Vietnam changed you and your views on life, or any thoughts on what it meant for you, that would be great. Thanks in advance. |
| Posted by: RonHood March 26, 2006 06:56 pm |
| Victor, I've tried sending emails to the University of Bucharest. I found the scholarly articles of a couple of researchers there but I never received a reply. I also sent an email to the "administration" there but again no reply. I tried emailing various folks at museums in Bucharest but the emails either bounced or there was no reply. I've had my only real success right here. If I can't get in touch with someone I'll just come to Romania and bang on their doors I am going to try to contact the person listed here http://www.sister-cities.org/icrc/cityseek/list/display?recID=34341 They want a sister city to share with. As the retired Mayor of a small City in Idaho I have some connections with the City Council here. Perhaps I can assist them in exchange for assistance. The map helped me plot this out more. Thanks. I'll read what I can on the other group and go from there. Imperialist, I found some slim references on the net to something like that but I've never found the video or any more info. I did find some folks in England who tried to make iron but from what I read they had some technical problems. mabadesc, I was in the field in VN for almost 18 months as part of an Intel unit. When I returned in 1967 I was very confused and a little off. I learned that what Napoleon once said "It's amazing that these men will fight and die for a ribbon or a piece of cloth" is substantially true (BTW that was a paraphrase). Men will fight for any reason. When I lived with headhunters in Northern Peru I watched a dozen of the men go off to "War" with another tribe because they thought the other tribe had cast a spell on them. I saw a number of conflicts in Chile when I taught courses to the troops of Agusto Pinochet (the dictator) . I didn't know at the time what they were fighting about but it was about freedom. The same has been true in Bolivia and other places I've been. I was never there to be a part of the local wars, I was there teaching, exploring or learning skills for survival that I could bring back to the US to teach my students. I'm very tired of all that stuff now. I have a young wife and a two year old baby and it's time for me to stay away from battle and just pursue my studies. Ron |
| Posted by: Imperialist March 26, 2006 09:21 pm | ||
Yes, the movie was online for only 1 week. If you would've asked me earlier I could've posted it for you, since I actually captured it. Unfortunately I decided to erase it afterwards. You can write to TVR International at this address: mailto:tvri@tvr.ro Ask them about an episode of "Enigme in Carpati" documentary from January 2006, or any documentary in January that relates to this metallurgy "reenactment" subject. I believe they will answer quicker than the others, since they are internationally oriented and their documentaries had english subtitiles. So presumably they are interested in foreign feedback. Maybe they will be kind enough to give you the needed info. wish you luck |
| Posted by: dragos03 March 26, 2006 09:34 pm |
| Contact Mr. Silviu Teodor from the National History Museum in Bucharest. His adress is: teo at mnir.ro He may be able to help you. [@ edited out] |
| Posted by: RonHood March 27, 2006 03:14 am |
| Thank you Imperialist. I'll contact them. I think the info about Sarmizegetusa is starting to come together. It looks like there were in fact several workshops and possibly 5 or 6 foundries located on the site. I've also found references to the quality of the steel being produced and it is exceptional. Iron is hard enough to make but actually making steel is with a high carbon content is amazing. Dragos... I'll get an email off to him forthwith. Thank you for the contact. Before I write I need to know if it's OK for me to say that I received the headsup on this board. He might be reticent to exchange emails if he thinks I came out of the blue. Also it might be a good idea to edit his address to remove the @ sign so the web crawlers don't add the poor guy's email to some porno list. Then again he might like porno.....  I have a lot of questions... That Dacia.Org site has a lot of interesting material. I'm sorting through it. Fun reading. One question keeps coming up... Just how do I get to Sarmizegetusa? Is it a long hike i.e. multi day or overnight or is it close to the road? Is Deva a good choice for a base from which to explore? Thanks again guys. Because of you I'm beginning to feel like I might be able to fairly represent the value of ancient Dacia to Western Civilization. Ron |
| Posted by: Imperialist March 27, 2006 06:07 am |
| Ron, this site also has an english section with info about dacians: http://www.gk.ro/sarmizegetusa/index_files/meniu.htm Unfortunately it doesnt mention (from what I've seen at least) the fact that Caesar himself planned a campaign in Dacia and that the first Roman military invasion into Dacia took place in 9 AD. |
| Posted by: bebe March 27, 2006 08:18 am | ||
many people
by searching the sites with metal detectors or buying kosons or other artefacts on the black market. I just hope you,RonHood you're not one of them. this was kind of off-topic |
| Posted by: dragos03 March 27, 2006 09:11 am |
| You can tell Mr. Teodor that you got his adress from this forum. But his e-mail is listed on the site of the Museum anyway. Some time ago i sent e-mails to almost all the museums in Romania, to get information for a magazine that i'm editing. The only people that replied and tried to help were Mr. Teodor and Mr. Mihai Fifor, the Director of the regional museum from Craiova (mihai_fifor at yahoo.com). You can get to Sarmizegetusa by car, if you use an off-road one. With a normal car you can get close to it but a 2-3 hours hike is still needed. |
| Posted by: mabadesc March 27, 2006 03:50 pm | ||
Thanks for your answer and best of luck with your research and studies. |
| Posted by: RonHood March 27, 2006 07:15 pm |
| Thanks Guys! Bebe, You have no worries on that account. I helped work on the US "Antiquities Act" back in the 80's when I worked at the University. It is enough for me to "feel" a place or a thing to get a sense of wonder. Robin Hood would do no less right erotoh? I can't really make out what the map shows. It looks like farmland to me and all the photos I've seen show Ancient Sarmizegetusa on top of a mountain in thick woods. Is Deva a good base for explorations of the area? What town is closest to Ancient Sarmizegetusa? Thank you! |
| Posted by: RonHood March 28, 2006 01:36 am |
| Oops... I just editied my post and you provided the info I found! Ron |
| Posted by: eratoh March 28, 2006 01:49 am | ||||
yes you are right. i called it zsadany because of this map http://www.dvhh.org/mercydorf/info/images/Ueberland_Mercydorf_Zsadany.jpg ... you'll note the feature is described as "romer schanze" roman earthworks and the coincidence with the hungarian zsadany |
| Posted by: Victor March 28, 2006 06:24 am | ||
Deva is one of the large cities in the area and definately offers better accomodation than Orastie could, but it isn't the closest one. Orastie is. It seems to be better to choose a hostel (pensiune) instead of a hotel. See here: http://www.roturism.com/cazare/Hunedoara/Orastie.html |
| Posted by: Imperialist March 28, 2006 10:19 pm | ||||||||||
JORDANES THE ORIGIN AND DEEDS OF THE GOTHS http://www.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html#united
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goths So what exactly is the relationship between Goths and Dacians. Jordanes equates Dacians with Goths. And with that in mind, its interesting to note the gothic invasion preceding the Roman withdrawal from Dacia. take care |
| Posted by: RonHood April 04, 2006 04:59 am |
| Hi Folks, Just thought I'd check in. With your help I think I finally figured out what I'll be doing. I spoke with Dr. Napoleon Savescu who seems to be a very nice man and very genuine in his interests. Above all he wants to see that the world learns more about Romanian history in general and about the ancient Dacians in particular. He did not try to "Push" any theory and offered to put me in touch with several scholars in Romania. I might be back in Romania to meet with him in Late June. Partly as a result of his information, the material I gleaned from this board and other research it looks like I'll fly into Cluj Napoca mid May. I'll stay there for a couple of days to see the local museum and talk to who ever I can find. Then I'll move to Deva for the citadel and the local museum. once in Deva I hope to find someone who would be willing to walk back to ancient Sarmizegetusa with me. I might spend a couple of days around Orastie as well if I can find a hotel there. I expect to hire a car in Cluj Napoca so getting around should not be too much of a challenge. I hope Romanian drivers are better than some of the places I've driven! Anyone on the board in those areas? It might be fun to meet over a beer or a coffee. I'm coming there to learn and I'll take all I can get. Ron |
| Posted by: Imperialist June 21, 2006 07:25 pm | ||
Could be about the dacian limes.... |
| Posted by: Victor June 22, 2006 07:03 am |
| The Bunloc chalet is relatively close to DN 1 (no more than an hour of climbing), on the right side of the road (Piatra Mare Massif), when you travel from Bucharest to Brasov. There is also a ski slope nearby. You can probably easily check it out and see what's there. |
| Posted by: Imperialist August 04, 2006 09:34 pm |
| Assurnasirpal II (883-859) period wall relief from facade of throne room, foreigners:  head of a Dacian prisoner, The Imperial Fora 107-113:  |
| Posted by: Imperialist August 18, 2006 04:33 pm |
| MUST READ: This site is currently dedicated to the publishing on the Web of the first (ongoing) English translation of PREHISTORIC DACIA by Nicolae Densusianu http://www.pelasgians.bigpondhosting.com/contents.htm |
| Posted by: Imperialist November 01, 2006 11:13 am |
| http://dacia.org/html/dacia_magazin.html |
| Posted by: Imperialist August 23, 2007 09:39 pm |
| Major archaeological discovery at Sarmizegetusa A team of archaeologists from Transylvania’s National History Museum (MNIT) made one of the most important discoveries within the Sarmizegetusa Ulpia Traiana – the Capitolium. http://www.nineoclock.ro/index.php?page=detalii&categorie=culture&id=20070824-504771 |
| Posted by: Victor May 31, 2008 05:21 pm |
| http://www.dacia.org/mag-2007-42.pdf An article in this magazine tells about the possible existence of another Dacian fortress in the Orastie Mountains complex, yet to be discovered. The author, Dan Oltean is the same person who discovered the Roman fort at Chitrid, dating from the first war. Dan Oltean is a an amateur archaeologist who also authored a book called Religia Dacilor, which I have been struggling to read for quite a while now. Rather heavy writing, in the style of Iorga IMO. Off topic posts were split and merged with a similar topic: http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=2957 |
| Posted by: 21 inf May 31, 2008 06:10 pm |
| The efforts made by dacia.org are great, but unfortunatelly, very poor sustained with solid proofs. They are a group of enthusiasts, all the respect for them, but even the article presented above is based purely on hypothesis, the only solid and real proof being the two "plinte", but the rest is only speculation for the moment. This organisation have in her ranks some profesionist historians, more or less contested by their fellow historians. I have all the respect for this organisation, for their efforts and for their enthusiasm, but the informations they present without solid scientific arguments can be rather dangerous at some point for uneducated minds. I posted this only for those who didnt know very much about this organisation, yet. |
| Posted by: Victor June 02, 2008 05:45 pm |
| I agree. The theories about Romans actually being Dacians and others in these category are obviously aberrations, but the theory about the existence of a Dacian fortress on that valley are more realistic. In my opinion the Dacian civilization is much underrated and much more should be invested in its research. Obviously not as spectacular as the ancient Greeks or Egyptians, but it has its own unique features, which are also very interesting. It could also be a profitable touristic attraction. They are after all the most important contributor in the formation of what is today the Romanian nation. |
| Posted by: 21 inf October 04, 2008 03:51 pm |
| Dacians name can be found here http://www.mnir.ro/publicat/damian/onomastica.html |