LIVING THE DACO-ROMAN SYNTHESIS
Experiential and Experimental
Archaeology Workshop
Transylvania (Romania)
JUNE 2nd – JUNE 29th, 2013
The conquest of Dacia was the last great expansion of Rome. Domitian’s failure to annex
Dacia and subsequent Roman military defeats at the hands of the Dacians made the Danube
frontier a target of essential importance for the Empire. It took Trajan, one of Rome’s greatest
military minds, two wars (102 AD and 106AD) to conquer and subjugate the mighty Dacians.
Our workshop aims at bringing the Daco-Roman synthesis to life. It is an archaeological
program that is meant to be both experimental and experiential. All our participants will
experience life as a Daco-Roman, working the ovens and the forges, building Late Iron Age
workshops and houses, training in the various weapons and tactical martial fighting techniques of
the day. Students and participants will make the intellectual and phenomenological journey from
the academic, to the experiment and to the experiential, in the fields of pyrotechnologies, domestic
crafts, weapons and tactics, and finally prehistoric building techniques and architecture.
Duration: 4 weeks
Costs: US$1985 for 5 weeks. It includes:

Registration taxes

All the prime materials

All the gear

Lectures and demonstrations

Full room and board)
For information and application procedure: www.archaeotek.org
Or contact us at [email protected]
Workshop:
Experimental and Experiential Archaeology – Living the Daco-Roman
Synthesis
Period:
Late Iron Age – Imperial Roman
Workshop period: June 02 – June 29, 2013 (4 weeks)
Historical and Archaeological Background:
By the beginning of the first century AD, the Roman Empire reached its zenith. The
conquest of Dacia was the last great expansion of Rome. Since the first half of the 1 st century BC,
under the great king Burebista, the Dacians start to get involved in Roman politics. Domitian’s
failure to annex Dacia and subsequent Roman military defeats at the hands of the Dacians made the
Danube frontier a target of essential importance for the Empire. It took Trajan, one of Rome’s
greatest military minds, two wars (102 AD and 106AD) to subjugate the mighty Dacians, or as
Herodotus described them, “the bravest and fairest of all the Thracians”. The Dacians were the only
(and last) entity left in Europe to pose a real threat to Rome… culturally, economically, politically
and military.
The synthesis between Dacia and Rome, from the conquest in 102/106 until the Aurelian
retreat in 271/275, sustained the Roman Empire for another two centuries. Dacians are the people
most immortalized in Roman imperial statuary. The Transylvanian gold has kept Roman economy
out of bankruptcy at the same time as the Dacian auxiliaries have manned the Imperial armies to the
point of having a emperor of Dacian origin, Maximinus Thrax.
Workshop Description
Our workshop aims at bringing this synthesis to life. It is an archaeological program that is
meant to be both experimental and experiential. We bring together archaeologists and craftsmen in
order to recreate actual objects found in excavations and Late Iron Age and Imperial Roman
techniques and technologies. At the same time, all our participants will experience life as a DacoRoman, working the ovens and the forges, building Late Iron Age workshops and houses, training
in the various weapons and tactical martial fighting techniques of the day. Students and participants
will make the intellectual and phenomenological journey from the academic, to the experiment and
to the experiential, in the fields of pyrotechnologies, domestic crafts, weapons and tactics, and
finally prehistoric building techniques and architecture.
Pyrotechnologies
The pyrotechnology section of the workshop deals with technologies that employ
fire as a means to transform matter. Our focus is twofold: metal and ceramics. We will
experiment with Late Iron Age metal technologies, going through all the stages of the
transformation: from roasting the iron ore, to making quick lime to use as flux, to reducing
the ore to produce sponge iron, then the bloomer is transformed into wrought iron that will
Experimental Archaeology Section
E-mail: [email protected]
www.archaeotek.org
be forged into iron artifacts, ranging from swords and arrow points to tools and jewelry. We
will also melt and cast iron, copper and bronze in Late Bronze Age and Iron Age type
furnaces.
The ceramic manufacturing aspect of the pyrotechnology section will take the
participants through all the stages of pottery making. We’ll begin by extracting and cleaning
the clay, making the tools that we need and then manufacturing Late Iron Age and Roman
vessels either free hand or using a slow wheel. We will experiment with different types of
surface treatment and various ways to apply heat. For the purpose of firing the pottery, we
will build three distinct environments: a ceramic firing pit, a Dacian (LIA) and a Roman
oven. By the end of the workshop, we will be eating and drinking out of our own vessels,
using our own utensils, all of them Late Iron Age style!
Domestic Crafts
The domestic crafts section of this workshop focuses around leather and bone as
experimental materials. We will try to reproduce bone household items, ranging from
needles to spoons, games, combs, and jewelry. We will go through the entire process, from
the raw, fresh bone to the hardening and various manufacturing techniques. We will explore
how different types of bone perform both under manufacturing and daily use conditions.
Leather works will be linked mostly to the manufacturing of various pieces of armor.
We will not process the hides, but we will work low processed leather. We will experiment
with various material variables (such as toughness, strength, elasticity, hardness) in order to
optimize the target qualities of the final object. We expect to complete from beginning to
end at least two full sets of armor: a Sarmatian riding scale armor and a Dacian infantry
“segmentata” armor. The learning process we’ll take us through the manufacturing of
smaller objects and jewelry as well as the larger, more intricate artifacts.
This year, we will also introduce weaving and spindle work in our workshop.
Participants will attempt to make thread from wool and then build a static LIA loom in order
to weave various simple pieces of cloth.
Weapons and Tactics
Our weapons and tactics aspect of our workshop revolves around the Dacian Wars
and the battles between the Dacian and their allies against the Roman Imperial armies, their
legions and auxiliary. At the same time as actually manufacturing them, participants will
learn to use several of the weapons from these battlefields: the Roman gladius; the Dacian
sica and falx; Sarmatian bows; battle slings; round, oval and square shields.
Concurrently with the martial practices, the participants will also receive tactical
training, in order to experience life as a Roman and Dacian soldier. We will train to
maneuver as Roman tactical units and test the strength and weaknesses of such formations.
At the same time, we will also train as Dacian warriors, the most efficient European
“barbarians” in breaking Roman formations. Keep in mind that the helmet and shield
reinforcements as well as the “maneca segmentata” were implemented into the Roman
heavy infantry armor in response to the Dacian falx.
Experimental Archaeology Section
E-mail: [email protected]
www.archaeotek.org
Prehistoric Architecture
The experimental study of prehistoric architecture and building techniques is more of
a long term endeavor. We are interested in the destruction patterns of such structures. Our
goal is to generate in a controlled environment the remains we find in excavations. As a
result, we will build several wall fragments and small houses in a wattle and daub technique,
and we will destroy them through different techniques while recording the result. We are
also interested to explore taphonomic processes that would impact the partially and/or
completely destroyed wattle and daub elements and structures.
Participants will be involved in all stages of the experiment, from collecting the clay
and manufacturing the daub, to creating the wattle infrastructure and apply the structural
clay, to the destruction process and the experimental archaeological recording of destruction
results.
Research team:
1. Project Director: Prof. Andre Gonciar (Director, Archeological Techniques and Research
Center, ArchaeoTek – Canada) – archaeology, pyrotechnology, prehistoric architecture,
tactics
2. Dr. Zsolt Nyaradi (Expert Archaeologist – Haaz Rezso Museum of History and
Ethnography, Odorheiu Secuiesc, Harghita County, Central Transylvania, Romania) –
archaeology, bone work, weatons and tactics
3. Opra Imre (Field Archaeologist, TDA, Romania) – archaeology, leather work, Sarmatian
weapons, tactics
4. Levente Zolya (Field Archaeologist, TDA, Romania) – archaeology, sword blacksmith,
weapons and tactics
5. Laura Iesean (ceramicist) – ceramic technologies
Bibliography:
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Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Fall of Rome. London: B. T. Batsford.
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AD). British International Series, 937:61-72.
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Giles, Melanie, 2007. “Making metal and forging relations: ironworking in the British Iron Age”.
Oxford Journal of Archaeology 26(4):395-413.
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Experimental Archaeology Section
E-mail: [email protected]
www.archaeotek.org
Hosek, Jiri, Henry Cleere, and Lubomir Mihok (eds.), 2011. The Archaeometallurgy of Iron. Recent
Developments in Archaeological and Scientific Research. Prague: Institute of Archaeology
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Archaeology, Part 2:2: Whorl or Bead? Tools and Textiles – Texts and Contexts Research
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Archaeology, Part 2:3: Loom Weights. Tools and Textiles – Texts and Contexts Research
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Mårtensson, L., Andersson, E., Nosch, M-L. & A. Batzer. 2007. Technical Report Experimental
Archaeology, Part 2:4: Spools. Tools and Textiles – Texts and Contexts Research Program.
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Copenhagen.
Mathieu J. R. (ed.), 2002. Experimental Archaeology: Replicating Past Objects, Behaviors, and
Processes 1-11. Oxford: Archaeopress. BAR International Series 1023.
McDaniel, Randy, 1998. A Blaksmithing Primer. A Course in Basic and Intermediate Blaksmithing.
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Ratiu, A., 2009. Pottery kilns from north-western Transylvania from the 2nd to the 4th centuries. In
O., Tentea, and I.C. Opris (eds.), Near and Beyond the Roman Frontiers. Bucharest: Center
for Roman Military Studies, 5, pp. 165-186.
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Totowa: Barnes & Noble Books.
Andre Gonciar
Project Coordinator
ArchaeoTek – Canada
Experimental Archaeology Section
E-mail: [email protected]
www.archaeotek.org