Military graves from the Late Roman necropolis at slog in Ravna (Timacum Minus)

Abstract

The necropolises of the Roman fortification and settlement Timacum Minus, in the village of Ravna, near Knjaževac, were partially explored by systematical and rescue archaeological excavations. The most extensively explored was the part of the Late Roman necropolis on the eastern slope of the Slog hill, about 400m west of the fortification, where 80 graves from this period have been investigated. The analysis of the human osteological material, and the archaeological finds from the aforementioned necropolis, confirmed 17 military graves, containing adult male individuals with traces of injuries, stress markers and pathological changes, characteristic of a military population, as well as military equipment and weapons. At the time of the formation of the Late Roman necropolis at the site of Slog, during the second half of the 4th and the first half of the 5th century, the garrison of the Timacum Minus fortification consisted of an equestrian unit of pseudocomitatenses Timacenses, a part of the auxiliary formation that secured the forts and roads in the Timok region. Among the graves from the three phases of the Late Roman necropolis, similarities as well as certain differences are apparent, indicating changes in the structure of the civilian and military population of Timacum Minus. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177007: Romanisation, urbanisation and transformation of urban centres of civil, military and residential character in Roman provinces in the territory of Serbia]

Keywords

• Late Roman period
• necropolis
• Timacum Minus
• Roman army
• Chernyakhov culture
• sharp force traumas
• blunt force injuries
• injuries inflicted by an arrow