The fine wares imports of the trajanic period in roman Dacia
Viorica Rusu-Bolindeţ
- abstract -
The pottery of Trajanic period in Roman Dacia has been very little investigated, a situation due both to the archaeological research, which failed many times establishing the Trajanic layers, as well as the general absence of monographic studies and quantitative analyses of the ceramic data. This stage of research has long impeded a survey of various artefacts throughout the history of the province.
The following study is a summary of the ceramic imports from all Trajanic assemblages currently identified in Dacia. The survey undertaken suggested samian was the most frequent import at this period. Moreover, the Tardo-Italian workshops seem to have been initially better represented comparing to south Gaullish products. The estimated percentages of Tardo-Italian samian situate this commodity's distribution in Dacia very close to the neighbouring provinces.
The study also aims to compare the various Trajanic sites and to establish the pattern of samian distribution in Dacia at this specific moment. Other categories of fine wares - thin walled, glazed, barbotine wares, etc will be also analyzed, these percentage being significantly smaller comparing to samian imports.
There will be employed comparisons with the pre-conquest ceramic imports to outline similarities or differences in the supply sources for such commodities. Finally, there will be investigated the beginning of the local productions and their repertories, the influence of imported samian to the development of provincial productions, percentages of imports versus local imitations, the contribution of sites with military or civilian pattern to the emergence of the local productions.