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.
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