Recent archaeological discoveries in the courtyard of the Huniade Castle in Timișoara
Recent archaeological discoveries in the courtyard of the Huniade Castle in Timișoara

Summary/Abstract: Huniade Castle is the most important historical monument of the municipality of Timișoara, its centuries-old history intertwining with the evolution of the city from the Middle Ages to the modern era. The castle had several construction stages from the 13th century to the 19th century, which reflect various styles and methods of construction related to its purpose, which was a royal and noble residence, and then a casern. In the inner courtyard of the castle, a brick donjon was discovered in 2009, which is the oldest and best-preserved archaeological vestige of medieval Timișoara, given that the city from the Middle Ages is nowadays overlapped by buildings and tissue street. The project for the restoration and conservation of the donjon, which provides for the construction of a footbridge around it, involved the carrying out of preventive archaeological research during 2021. In this article, the results of this research are briefly presented, as a result of which built structures were discovered that complete the planimetry of the ensemble, as well as some utilitarian arrangements in the yard, a well, and a kiln, which date from the period of the 14th-15th centuries. However, the most important result is the discovery of the first palisade and the first defensive ditch of the donjon, which had two phases of construction. According to the observations of the archaeological context and based on the ceramic discoveries, it can be estimated that these phases of wood and earth date back to the 13th-14th centuries.

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