Cercetări arheologice preventive în orașul medieval Târgoviște – Strada Calea Domnească nr. 192

Abstract

Towards the end of 2020, across the street from what is today Princely Court Openair Museum, the formally Princely Court of Târgoviște, as part of a rescue archaeological research project, on a relatively small surface, several medieval features were discovered. These structures unveiled several historical sequences from the timeframe of XVth– XVIIIth century. The oldest objects, consisting of a few ceramic fragments, indicate the existence of dwellings from the La Tène period and from the IIIrd– IVth centuries, somewhere in the area. Artifacts and features dated to the XVth– XVIth centuries documented the existence of a craftsman’s workshop in the same area. The most important discovery, however, is a necropolis (18 features), partially captured in the surveyed area, previously untraceable in terms of documentary information. The same chronostratigraphic context revealed a sidewalk pavement and a collapsed building, probably a bell tower. These discoveries suggest the existence of an ecclesiastical complex, dated in the second half of the XVIth century, but whose existence, according to some clues, seems to have been rather short. The first‑hand observations during the excavation on the youth of many of those buried were also confirmed by anthropological research. Thus, the interdisciplinary research corroborated information from contemporary documents, about Wallachia and implicitly Târgoviște, between the end of the XVIth and the first three decades of the XVIIth century, a series of military events took place whose negative effect was enhanced by natural calamities, translated into famine and disease. The necropolis and the medieval structures discovered at Strada Calea Domnească nr. 192, on a surface of about 70 square meters, are yet another layer from the complex chronostratigraphy of the city and, at the same time, proves, on one side, still the remarkable archaeological potential of Târgoviște, and on another, that research of its past entered in another stage.

Keywords

• late middle age
• târgoviște
• cemetery
• church