The Past is Present

Trajan's Column

2009-03-23T11:59:00.000-07:00

Dacian warriors with the Wolf Banner
This is how the copy fragments are displayed at the Museum of History in Bucharest
The scene of Decebalus' suicide: heroism or defeat?
The much debated torture-scene: are the Romans torturing the Dacians or vice-versa?
The top of the Column copy in Bucharest

Burebista's profile from Trajan's Column
Trajan's Forum with the Column in the back
The original Column in Rome

Dacian stories

2008-12-29T07:51:00.000-08:00

Burebista, the King of Kings

Dacians had many enemies who oftentimes pillaged their lands: they stole their sheep, their grain, they burnt their towns and villages. Anytime a Dacian cheiftan tried to resist the enemy he was easily defeated and taken prisoner. Even Burebista almost lost his life in one such battle. These enemies were a terrible burden on the dacians. Seeing this, Burebista summoned all the Dacian chieftains and said: " If we want peace and quiet, we need to unite. Make a big country. A strong army. Build stone fortresses." Some leaders agreed and said: We will follow your advice, Burebista, but lead us to victory." Others declined : " Before we listen to you, we'd rather make peace with the enemy. We'll pay them tribute and they will leave us alone. " Two years after this, the enemy invaded Dacia. They had heard that Burebista had united most of the Dacians, but they still believed that they could defeat him and take away the spoils. What did Burebista do? He met their army halfwat to the river Nistru and stopped their charge. With another part of his army he encircled them. He took a lot of his enemies prisoners. He caught three Dacian leaders who had betrayed him by joining the enemy army. "Have you discovered that by staying united we can overcome? " "Yes, we have, please forgive us." "I would forgive you, but treason is the worst crime. I will let the people decide your fate." Burebista forgave a lot of enemies, letting them return to their countries, after they swore never to raise their weapons against Dacia. The people sentenced the traitors to death. So, with wisdom, determination, courage and justice, Burebista established Dacia, Romania's motherland, two thousand years ago. Don't forget, Burebista is our ancestor. He united the Dacians, built Dacia as a free country. And he defended her against any force.

Decebalus, the Dacian Hero

Decebalus was the most important king of the Dacians after Burebista. He too strengthened Dacia with fortresses and armies. Now, there was a new enemy: the Roman Empire. The Dacians fought the Romans many times. The Romans wanted to conquer Dacia at any cost. In the begining the Dacians emerged victorious. When the Roman Emperor sent a big army against Decebalus, the latter summoned his troups and faced him. He sent emissaries to ask the roman general to return home to his own riches and let the Dacians live freely in their country. But the roman general rejected his offer. He was arogant for he had won many hard battles before. Decebalus knew this and he tried to outsmart him. He retreated towards the mountains and let the roman general advance on the river Olt with his well equipped army. When the romans were in a tight spot, he attacked them and took many prisoners. Seeing the danger, the roman general asked Decebalus to fight alone and decide the battle. Decebalus replied:" I would gladly fight , I am not afraid of death. But I cannot fight beneath my rank. If your emperor will fight me then I will accept immediately. I will send you Duras, my bravest general. Fight him and if you are victorious then you are free to return to your empire with your people. " Still the Roman general refused to fight a Dacian general. He yelled: "I am a Roman general! I will not fight just anybody. " Seeing this Decebalus thought: " I would rather fight him then lose more soldiers in battle, even though I am a king and he is a general." So he did. After many sword strikes, Decebalus defeated the general. He did not kill him but said: " I will spare your life, now command your army off my country." The roman general returned with his men. But the Emperor was furious and sentenced him to death. Then the romans left Dacia. Decebalus' victory worried the Roman Emperor. And for a while, he gave up his plans to conquer Dacia. Later, when Trajan became Emperor, the wars started again.....

The story of the beautiful Dochia

Decebalus had a sister called Dochia. She was young, brave and beautiful. When the roman emperor saw her, he fell in love with Dochia. He said: " I saw you bravely defend your citadel of Sarmisegetuza. Now that I've defeated your brother Decebalus and I have conquered Dacia and the war is over, I want you to come with me to Rome. You will live in riches and praises, in my wonderful palace." "Thank you, emperor, said Dochia. I admire your bravery and kindness. But I cannot go to Rome." Why?" "Because I am Decebalus' sister. And he killed himself so that he wouldn't be your prisoner. No matter how beautiful your castle is, I would still be a slave in it. There are many Dacian girls more beautiful than me; if you want, you and your romans should marry them and make a new people, brave as us and great as you are. I will not leave, I want to be buried in the sacred earth of Dacia. " The Roman Emperor listened to her advice. But soon he learned that Dochia had taken a flock of sheep and went to live in the mountains. He was very angry. He wanted Dochia to be his trophy in his triumph chariot in Rome. He took some men and went searching for her. He wandered for days and weeks and found her among the peaks of the Ceahlau mountains. She was watching her sheep feed on a pasture with white, red and blue flowers. "Dochia, he said, you will not escape me now, I am taking you with me!" "No, emperor! I would rather die like my brother Decebalus than become a slave." "I only mean well, you will live like a queen in riches!" "If you want my happiness then leave me in my country, in Dacia." "I will kidnap you then and take you by force!" And he signaled his men to catch her. Frightened, Dochia, raised her hands towards the sky and whispered: "Even if I were to become stone, I want to stay in my country!" Suddenly, the beautiful Dochia and all her sheep became stones, thrusted in the mountain. Trajan was stunned. He said:" I can't help it. The Dacians, men and women are tied to their country as rock and stone. I have to listen to Dochia's advice and bring more romans here." And so, he returned to Rome. Even today, on Ceahlau mountain you can see a tall stone, like a shepherdess and around her a dozen smaller rocks scattered on the field like sheep. For hundreds of years, Romanians call these rocks "Old Dochia and her sheep."

from Stories from History for children and students

Tropaeum Traiani

2008-12-22T10:55:00.000-08:00

Beautiful sunny day and we took a short ride to Adamclissi, where Tropaeum Traiani stands above the open fields. But first, some lovely images of romanian sheep scattered over the green. This is actually relevant as reliefs from the monument represent the richness of the land: sheep and goats.

And here is an impressive 1977 reconstruction of the original monument which was dedicated in 109 CE by Trajan to Mars the Avenger. The guide told us there were a lot of bloody wars here between the romans and the dacians and their allies( the germans and sarmats) hence the monument is also a tribute to them. Oh yea, and to remind the "barbarians" who was in charge. ahem...

Here is a map of the place. No 1 is where the trophy is and No 2 is the modern town.

The museum holds the original relief pieces and part of the trophy statue on top.

This giant mosaic was made by a group of highschoolers from Bucharest and shows "the genesis of the romanian people" across different towns.

They were playing football on the field outside the museum ! :)

The hall way where all the remaining pieces are held

It was actually freezing the whole time i was there. and by freezing i mean it was colder than outside. museum must have run out of money to pay the heating. or this is some new method of conservation.

Romans bearing the standard in the process of "civilizing" the "barbarians." It is intersting how this monument is consistently seen as a pice of national pride in Romania as it documents the defeat of their ancestors - after they put up a good fight though. You need to read my paper to understand why. hahah

Here is a detail of the cornice. It has beautiful wolf heads with sparrows. both of which are native to the land; it is interesting that they would use the wolf heads as those were also the symbol of the dacians, a sort of flag that they would carry around like a standard.

More details from the top part. the lions were used as decoration and perched at the end of the roof to spout out rain. nice! unfortunately they only have an orginal lion left.

I just loved this face- this is from the trophy that fell down from the roof and shattered into pieces.

Dacians, germans, sarmats v.s. the romans. it's really cool to go up close and see all these like an illustrated storybook.

Addendum- creative reuse

2008-12-21T22:34:00.000-08:00

Ok- our last day in the mountains friday and my dad wanted to see this 13th century church, supposedly the oldest one in romania ( he's a real history buff, no really). i acquiesced since we had done all my dacian digging for the week. Little did we know we would find parts of Ulpia Traiana at this little church called Densusi. Click here for more info:

http://www.romanianmonasteries.org/other-monasteries/densus

Apparently this little patch of christianity needed "aesthetic and physical support," as it was falling down sometime at the beginning of the 20th century so they creatively reused columns and funerary stones from the roman city. My thought cells tinkered as I have actually learned about spoliation in my medieval and intro art classes ( yes! duke education pays off) - so was really excited to see a "live specimen." you have to be an art major to be happy when you run into stuff like this i think.

Densus church and dad thoroughly documenting the stones .

The entrance way was paved with column bases.

Paganism supporting Christianity...literally.

More decoration - this was next to the courtyard. if you look at the design, i found the exact pattern in Sarmisegetuza.

And more...

Umm.. this seemed important since it has something like imperator and maxim pontifus on it. which means it refers to the emperor
Local flavor. this is actually the house of the Priest in charge of this nice little place. He wouldn't be photographed or let us take pictures inside...sigh... but he told us how the church was ravaged by the turks and the protestants. And, more related to my thesis he mentioned that the orthodox and the catholics used to worship together in this church during communism but then the catholic brothers turned their eyes to the west and abandoned the good cause.

My favorite re-use of a column!

Ulpia Traiana

2008-12-20T13:44:00.000-08:00

Another great image of where the Dacians lived...

We started our next day going to the remains of Uplia Traiana Sarmisegetuza, that is the Roman town that was built sometime around 108-110 C.E. in the vicinity of the Dacian capital.(40 km) It is standing in the town of Sarmisegetuza where we were housed. One thing that you notice right away is how Dacians liked to climb the mountains(1200m high) and the Romans loved lower, more spread out ground.(500m) The ruins were quite impressive: there is an amphitheater(but don't think Collusseum because it's 10 times smaller), 5 temples and a few hectars big forum. Pictures follow with explanations.

the entrance to the amphitheater. translation from the official slab:
"the amphitheater was a sort of stadium of our days, where the Romans could see a diversity of shows: gladiator fights, drama, mime, sports etc. it has an eclipse shape and a capacity of 5000 to 6000 spectators, but the places were occupied in a strictly social order. the amphitheater brings us important information about the period after the retreat of the Roman army and administration South of the Danube, when it as transformed into a fortress."

Click here for Birds-eye view

These would have been the tiers for the audience.
A look of what the walls were made off. Probably basalt and limestone.

They said this was the temple of the goddess Nemesis( actually this is the Greek name), who governed over the fair distribution of chance, and part of the housing for gladiators. In Roman mithology Nemesis was called Invidia, translated as "to give what is due."

Another temple to . Notice the row of cut columns on the right. We learned from the locals that a lot of these were recycled ( read stolen ) because of their precious marble composition.

The well was still standing and is still being used. you must be from Romania to understand why someone would drink water from an ancient well that's supposedly in an archaeological site...

AHA! The robbers didn't get away with this column. Despite the fact that it's not very well kept the material is shiny white marble.

Someone must have been caught in the act of taking this one away. One of the things you'll notice is how badly kept the site is. I kept thinking to myself, why isn't this in a museum or restored somehow? My mother hypothesized that they are waiting for the earth to cover this site again so that someone more responsible and with more money will re-rediscover it. ha!

More from the same temple
This was used as a big storage. or Horrerum in Latin.

I think haystacks like these used to be here during the Dacians. I am half joking here, but goes to show how the town is integrated into the site.

THE FORUM....

Another pair of broken columns in the forum. and a pile of rocks waiting to be sorted.

My latin isn't what it used to be but this looks like a votive dedication. All in marble.

Assortment of capitols

Assortment of stones used in the city: marble, brick, basalt, limestone

Measuring up the votive dedication

I don't really know what these were except they had a vaulted ceiling and you went down 3 steps onto the grass....

Another mystey room in the forum. they don't do a good job of explaining what these are AND then they look like this....what???

Nice (almost) clean white marble.

People live right beside the site. here is someone's backyard. i was thinking some of those stones might even come from the forum.

I am a fan of the haystacks. Here you can see how the plots come right up to the archeological site.

I tried to visit the museum, but it was closed until the summer for renovation. wouldn't you know it? here are some missing shafts and an improvised bike rack.

Going up the mountain

2008-12-19T19:03:00.000-08:00

We have arrived in the Town of Sarmisegetuza and the weather is really warm. We are graciously housed by locals who are trying to open their own motel/inn called Zamolxes ( which happens to be the name of the main Dacian God)

I took a photo of their kitchen. They like to keep it simple and traditional.

We went to Orastie, the town closest to the Dacian Sarmisegetuza. Here i found a wall mosaic from the communist period which glorifies Burebista and his cheiftans and a slightly over life-size bronze of the king, dedicated by the "Dacia Revival Society of New York." (who knew?)The locals are very taken with them as they stand prominently in the city center, in front of the town hall.

Click to read more about Burebista

In translation: Burebista, King of Kings, 82-44 BCE

Next we tried to reach the actual site. Upon entering the grounds, we are greeted by a monumental but traditional porch, with reliefs of both Burebista and Decebalus both of whom are considered the two main Dacian kings.

Unfortunately we found out that the last 10 km of the road were snowed in and our small car wouldn't make it up. oh well. i took a picture of the view towards Sarmisegetuza.

On the way there I also looked at the mountain's morphology aka what rocks did the dacians have to built their cities/fortresses. See the shiny slivers in the basalt ? that makes iron. we also found calcareous rocks but no silver and gold as the area is famous for these precious metals. we would have probably had to dredge the river bed....

On our way back from Orastie, we ran upon yet another Dacian monument: this is called "Brishca lui Decebal" and represents the sword he used to take his own life when overrun by the Romans. It stands on a hill and it's well lit at night. Must be a sight to see...

Introduction or Hello World

2008-12-19T18:38:00.000-08:00

I've decided to start this blog for several reasons: first the practical one, storing photos and videos online so that (by some malfunction, ahem, remembering the loss of my entire summer research project with michal) i can easily revisit the material and share it with my friends, professors, randos etc. Second, as you might know I am writing a thesis in art history on the role of daco-roman art and archeology in the 1970s in Romania and i would like feedback on my ideas and style of writing. And third, I am also producing a personal documentary on this experience, where i put myself and my family at the center of exploring how the past is remembered in Romania, why and how it relates to the present.

As you may or may not know, Romanians are very keen on their ancestors, and pride themselves in being direct descendants of the Romans and the Dacians. You may have heard of the Romans. Well, in around 100 CE they conquered Dacia, inhabited by the geto-dacians, partly the territory of present-day Romania. Taking a bunch of gold, slaves and armor back to Rome, Trajan built a monumental Forum for himself and the more famous Column of Trajan, which represents his campaigns in Dacia, and in which he was later buried.

It is inferred that Dacia became a Roman colony and the two civilizations intermingled ( read, the Romans killed most of the Dacian men, sold the able bodied remainder into slavery and remarried Dacian women)
During Aurelian, 170 years or so later, it is said that the Romans retreated(the Empire wasn't doing very well) and hence several theories have been formulated as to what happened to the daco-romans. Did they scatter? Were they finished off by the migratory populations? Did they stay for another thousand years? All these questions are paramount in how Romanians view themselves today, their right to live on the present day territory and their claim to a glorious Latin heritage.

Here is where my thesis begins: most of these theories have been severely influenced by the powers that be in Romania, whether the local government, the Soviet Union or the Hapsburg Empire, manipulating the archaeological evidence so as to give legitimacy to their leadership. These re-writings of the past affected not only history books but the language and culture in general. I chose to focus on the 1970s because, during the Communist regime, the Dacians were glorified to the extent that they were presented as equals to the greatest civilizations of the ancient world ( wink, romans). Romanians were encouraged to see themselves as Dacians (primarily) and Romans reborn under the banner of communism.

Of course, I have to mention that regardless of whether the daco-romans factor in our genetic mix or not, many other people have contributed to our ethnic heritage including the slavs, the germans, the huns, the roma and other people that have been documented living in Romania centuries after the dacians and the romans did. But no matter for the communists only focused on the presumably first two throughout their cultural revolution.

In my project I am writing about 3 sites/works of art: a copy of Trajan's Column in Bucharest, revealed in the Museum of History in 1972, Tropaeum Traiani, another 1970's reconstructions of a Roman victory monument in Adamclisi(this is actually pretty close to my hometown, Constanta), and Sarmisegetuza or Sarmizegetusa, which refers to the ancient Dacian capital and the Roman city built in its vicinity,(Ulpia Traiana) both excavated in this period and used as a site for public celebrations- Dacian themed of course.

During my winter break in Romania, I will re-visit all these places, take pictures, interview scholars and locals about them as well as film material for the personal documentary. So please stay tuned, as i will update this blog regularly. This is also a chance to see some pretty gorgeous mountain scenery and lots of farm animals.

Also, I will make a public presentation of all this sometime in early April, so mark your calendars!