Parcere subiectis et debellare superbos...

De Decker, Klara and Piccioni, Aura (2024) Parcere subiectis et debellare superbos... ACTA ARCHAEOLOGICA ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARUM HUNGARICAE, 75 (2). pp. 233-255. ISSN 0001-5210 (print); 1588-2551 (online)

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Abstract

The paper deals in with the evidence probably related to a bronze workshop discovered along the Pannonian limes, at Dunaújváros (Hungary), an ancient Roman auxiliary fort with an associated civil settlement known as Intercisa. Such evidence raises the issue if the workshop was under the military command inside or outside the fort. Rescue excavations were carried out in 1962 and 1967. In the 1970s, a late Roman building was discovered with 19 furnaces filled with glass, bronze and iron slag under it. Metal slag and half-melted bronze fragments were found in furnaces No. 7 and No. 10. The existence and density per square meter of such objects led to the interpretation of the site as a workshop district. The coin finds and the terra sigillata fragments allow the life of this district to be dated to the 2nd–3rd century AD. Some years later other excavations were carried out on an area of 800 m2 about a 200 m distance from the workshop district. Among other finds a pit (1983/9) was brought to light in the area containing huge amounts of terra sigillata and pottery, as well as other objects, among them a bronze statuette of Mars Ultor also thrown in for waste disposal. This find comes as no surprise in military forts, but this iconography remains unique in Intercisa, while fragments probably belonging to bronze imperial statues come from the camp (Visy, 1983). Thanks to comparisons with other statuettes of the same kind the changing interpretation of such iconography in the provinces is discussed and its importance for the military fort analyzed as well.

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