TROPAEUM TRAIANI: REVISITING THE FIELD FINDINGS OF CARL WILHELM WUTZER (1856) VS. EXCAVATION DATA OF GRIGORE TOCILESCU (1885) ON THE TRIUMPHAL MONUMENT

Abstract

AbstractThe Triumphal Monument Tropaeum Traiani of Adamclisi, Romania is analyzed with reference to the survey published by the German Professor Carl Wilhelm Wutzer after his trip of 1856 in Dobrudja. Since 1882, Tocilescu excavated the ruin and appreciated past data, although there was enough criticism about the idea of considering the monument as built by Persians and geometrical figures of parapets as Persian letters. Most intriguing was, anyway, the information about the previous existence of a “fountain“, as well as of a “coffin-shaped marble vessel“ on the upper part of ruin, as well as of some stone plates, according to the stories of an elder Bulgarian. Since the data of that epoch are scarce, they are worth to be re-evaluated. In this respect, a careful translation was done, with due attention to debatable findings. The pieces, images and symbols associated to the ruin and with stone parts were correlated with the stages of dismantling and decay, in the historical and religious context of the Ottoman period. The author¢s correlations and interpretations are based on factual arguments, bridging the gap between the archaeologist¢s concepts and local population perceptions and public memory in Dobrudja. Thus, a valuable historical information is recovered, and it was established that the three items of Wutzer report existed and were excavated by Tocilescu. Although they had other initial functions, they correspond to specific components of the hexagonal tower, some of them exposed in museum, other lost in time.

Keywords

• tropaeum traiani, wutzer, basin-fountain, marble coffin, hexagonal tower