Ancient treasures surface these days in Romania and make quite an impression. Apart from the huge silver hoard recently discovered in Valcea county, three more important discoveries were made recently: a 20,000-year-old stone pendant, a Roman wall and a Roman sarcophagus, intact and sealed.
The 20,000-year-old stone pendant was discovered at Poiana Ciresului, in Piatra Neamt and has unique decorative elements. This object is part of a series of discoveries made in the area, findings that prove the existence of the Gravettian culture in Romania. Moreover, this archaeological site is the most important in the South-East of Europe for the upper Paleolithic.
“The discovery was made at the Paleolithic archaeological site from Poiana Ciresului, the pendant being the third object of its kind ever discovered in Romania. There were also discovered, in the same area, bones of reindeer and bison, since the settlement was used as a hunters’ camp,” explained the director of the Gheorghe Dumitroaia Neamt County Museum Complex.
Another recent discovery made public is the Roman wall dating from the 2nd century AD. This wall, as photos made public show, ran approximately 37 miles from the Danube to the Black Sea over today’s Romania.
Researchers working on this discovery say, as a release from the University of Glasgow states, that they used declassified aerial pictures taken during World Wars I and II and declassified images made by American spy satellites during the Cold War.
“This new stretch of wall indicates that the area has [sic] been far more militarized and carefully controlled during the Roman period than was previously appreciated,” she explained. “This calls for a new analysis of Roman defensive strategy in the area of the Lower Danube. … Another important outcome is that these monuments highlight just how long afterwards ancient monuments and installations could have been in use over the following centuries and how much were these adapted to specific needs of those times,” explained to Huffington Post Dr. Ioana Oltean, a senior archaeology lecturer at the University of Exeter.
Finally, the third archaeological discovery was made in the Partos neighborhood of Alba Iulia. Here, Archaeologists from the National Museum in Alba Iulia found an intact and sealed Roman sarcophagus dating back to the III-IV centuries. This sarcophagus is believed to be part of the ancient necropolis Apulum, revealed in the last 6 months by archaeologists. With this sarcophagus other items were also found: objects from the Roman period and other smaller sarcophagi which had signs suggesting they had been robbed. All of the items will be further investigated by the museum’s archaeologists. The intact sarcophagus contains the skeleton of a man.