The Biertan Donarium is a fourth-century Christian votive object found near the town of Biertan, in Transylvania, Romania. Made out of bronze in the shape of a Labarum, it has the Latin text EGO ZENOVIVS VOTVM POSVI, which can be approximately translated as "I, Zenovius, offered this gift".
It was found in 1775 in the Chinedru forest, about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) south of Biertan and it was part of the collections of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal, nowadays being part of the exhibits of the Brukenthal National Museum.
There are several theories on the origins of this artifact. According to the supporters of the Daco-Romanian continuity theory, this donarium was made by the survivor Romanized, Latin-speaking Christian population population of Dacia [1] (the ancestors of Romanians according to this theory ) following the Aurelian Retreat. This artifact is used as an important witness to the continuity of the use of Latin in this area. [2] This opinion is supported by the Romanian Academy.
The donor's name (see Zenobius) is oriental, not Dacian or Roman. [3]
Those historians who are skeptical about this object point to the dubious circumstances of this finding. [4]
They emphasize that there were no Roman settlements or Christian churches near to Biertan. [5] According to them this object was made in Aquileia in Northern Italy during the 4th century [6] [7] and it was carried into Transylvania as a loot by Gothic warriors or by trading. [8] It is the most possible that the find from Biertan is a result of plundering in Illyricum or Pannonia or in the Balkans anytime between the fourth and the sixth century and this artifact was reused as a pagan object by its new owners. [9] [10]
The object could have also belonged to a captured Roman(?), escaped or kidnapped from Pannonia (?) [11]
Originally it was intended to be hung from a candelabrum but the perforations made later indicate it was reused and attached to a coffer for storing vessels or other goods. According to this opinion, even its usage for Christian purposes should be questioned in the territory of Transylvania.
Transylvania is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains and to the west the Apuseni Mountains. Broader definitions of Transylvania also include the western and northwestern Romanian regions of Crișana and Maramureș, and occasionally Banat. Historical Transylvania also includes small parts of neighbouring Western Moldavia and even a small part of south-western neighbouring Bukovina to its north east. The capital of the region is Cluj-Napoca.
Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians, its core in Transylvania, stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It thus roughly corresponds to present-day Romania, as well as parts of Moldova, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Ukraine.
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Transylvania is a historical region in central and northwestern Romania. It was under the rule of the Agathyrsi, part of the Dacian Kingdom, Roman Dacia (106–271), the Goths, the Hunnic Empire, the Kingdom of the Gepids, the Avar Khaganate, the Slavs, and the 9th century First Bulgarian Empire. During the late 9th century, Transylvania was part of the Hungarian conquest, and the family of Gyula II of the seven chieftains of the Hungarians ruled Transylvania in the 10th century. King Stephen I of Hungary asserted his claim to rule all lands dominated by Hungarian lords, and he personally led his army against his maternal uncle Gyula III. Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1002, and it belonged to the Lands of the Hungarian Crown until 1920.
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Editura Dacia is a publishing house based in Romania, located on Pavel Chinezul Street 2, Cluj-Napoca. Named after the ancient region of Dacia, it was founded in 1969 by a group of Transylvanian intellectuals, and printed works in Romanian, German and Hungarian.
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Dacology is a branch of Thracology which focuses on the scientific study of Dacia and Dacian antiquities and is a regional and thematic branch of the larger disciplines of ancient history and archaeology. A practitioner of the discipline is a Dacologist. Dacology investigates the range of ancient Dacian culture from c. 1000 BC up to the end of Roman rule in the 4th-7th centuries. It is directly subordinated to Thracology, since Dacians are considered a branch of the Thracians by most mainstream research and historical sources. Other theories sustain that the Daco-Thracian relation is not as strong as originally thought and as such Dacology has the potential to evolve as an independent discipline from Thracology.
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Romanian archaeology begins in the 19th century.
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The following detailed sequence of events covers the timeline of Cluj-Napoca, a city in Transylvania, Romania.