THE POTTERY FROM VICUS NAPOCA

Viorica Rusu-Bolindet and Sorin Ilie Cocis

The Roman town Napoca is situated in the north-western part of Roman Dacia. The Roman settlement was set up by Trajan and was composed of Noric-Pannonian colonists and natives. The first phase of Roman habitation that is stratigraphically documented, and surely attributed to the Trajanic period (approx. AD 106-108/110), consists of an unsystematic temporary settlement of the first immigrants - the dwellings are of timber. The second phase also consists of timber houses, but it represents the passage towards a more stable settlement. This phase is the one of the rural settlements in Napoca and it dates until the moment when Napoca was granted municipal status by Hadrian (AD 108/110-118).

The present study deals with the ceramic material unearthed in Napoca from its beginning until the granting of the municipal status. In the two earth-and-timber layers mentioned above, the wares include: late La Tène pottery and Roman pottery. The first category consists of: Dacian hand made pottery, Dacian wheel made pottery, slow wheel made pottery of Celtic tradition. The second category includes: fine and common ware.

In the Trajanic phase the proportions of the above mentioned categories are as follows: late La Tène pottery - 37%, Roman pottery - 63%. Features of the material found in this phase are: preeminence of Dacian hand made ware (89% in the category, 33% from the total ware of the entire phase), the low percentage of the terra sigillata imports (4%) and of other fine ware (pottery decorated in barbotine technique and Pompeian red ware). The stamped pottery is very well represented in the group of the fine ware (47%). Through the forms and through the decoration, stamped pottery, as well as through the few samples of local plain terra sigillata and the common ware, this groups are records of the beginning of a local industry in Napoca that appeared under the influence and because of potters who came in with the first immigrants especially from southern Pannonia and Upper Moesia. The common ware is characterized by the preeminence of the table ware (65% in the group, 19% from the total).

In the next phase there are some changes in the proportions. The proportion of late La Tène pottery diminished (22%) in favor of the Roman pottery (78%). The dominant features of the pottery from this second phase are: the continuation of the production of Dacian hand made ware that is still preeminent in the group (83%) but diminishes in quantity compared to the previous period; the increasing number of importations (especially terra sigillata - 15% from the fine ware, 9% from the total) but also of the local pottery: local terra sigillata whose making in a local workshop is recorded through a sigillum, Drag. 37 bowls relief decorated and a great number of plain terra sigillata (40% from the group, 25% from the total). The stamped pottery is still produced in the same style as the one of the previous phase and so is the pottery decorated in barbotine technique and the paterae. The common ware is lesser in the group (15%, compared to the 63% rate of the fine ware). The drinking vessels (vasa pota(to)ria) are first, then vasa conquinatoria.

In its whole, the ware from the two phases of the Roman vicus Napoca is well recorded in the entire ceramic material from the settlement (15,5% and respectively 13% from the total). It documents both of the presence of Noric-Pannonic immigrants under whose influence a local ware production begun and of the presence of natives whose increasing Romanization is proven by the adoption of his one element of material culture, the Roman pottery.

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