O LOCUINȚĂ MEDIEVALĂ TIMPURIE, RECENT DESCOPERITĂ LA ALBA IULIA
AN EARLY MEDIEVAL DWELLING, RECENTLY FOUND IN ALBA IULIA

Summary/Abstract: The authors present an early Medieval dwelling, recently found in Alba Iulia, on 90 Calea Moților St, during preventive archaeological research on the construction of a house, from July-September 2020. Besides numerous archaeologic complexes dating back to the Roman period and pre-modern age (16th-17th centuries), a complex dating from the early Middle Ages was identified. It is a quadrangular home, with dimensions of 4,50 X 4,30 m, beaten clay floor and post pits on corners, but also at the middle of sides. Similarly, it also held a quadrangular oven of stone, located on the north-eastern corner of the complex. The inventory is poor and consists of ceramic material with incised decorations that comes from jar-like pots. The specificity of the decoration (grooves displayed all over the body of the vessel) and the morphological features of the vessels (sandy paste, globular shape, wide brims, yet less evolved) urge us to subsume the dwelling culturally and chronologically under the Balkan-Danubian culture, or Dridu (the cultural group Blandiana A) entered in Transylvania once with the expansion of the Bulgarian czardom in this area, up to the middle course of the Mureș River, around the mid of the IXth century. In this case, due to the decoration from the incised sockets, the dwelling may be dated to the mid-Xth century, or immediately after this phase, in the final phase of this cultural group, that we consider it exceeds the mid of the Xth century. The current habitation levels, belonging to the same cultural context, discovered on the territory of the old Roman fort, but also a district of Alba Iulia municipality (Micești - Cigașe), the graves from the first stage of the great early Medieval cemetery from Stația de Salvare, and that from Blandiana (inclusively the settlement) are evidence of a centre of power of a voivodeship under the protectorate of the Bulgarian czardom, that dominated the area until the arrival of the first Hungarian horsemen in the fourth decade of the Xth century. The archaeological discoveries from the last decade in Micești - Cigașe, as well as the materials from this home, may show the continuity of some cultural traditions also following the mid of Xth century when the relation of forces was reconfigured on the territory of the political party from the middle course of the Mureș Valley.

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