Troesmis
Turcoaia (Troesmis – Ptol. III, 10, 5; ItAnt 225, 2; TP VII, 3; ND, Or. 39, 13, 18)
Location: Tulcea county (RAN 161473.01; TL-I-s-A-05952)
Troesmis is a complex site, located on the right bank of the Danube, near Lake Igliţa, 15 km south of Măcin town (Arrubium) and 4 km north of Turcoaia village. The land on which the fortifications are located is owned publicly. Access is via national road (DN 22d), respectively by agricultural road.
The strategic importance of Troesmis is given by its successive usage, starting from the 1st century AD, by a unit of auxiliaries (ala I Pannoniorum? – ISM V 214), and then as the castrum for legion V Macedonica (after 106 – 168/9), of a fleet station in classis Flavia Moesica; during the Tetrarchy it becomes headquarters of the II Herculia Legion and an auxiliary unit (milites secundi Constantiniani), and in the 6th century it serves as an episcopal centre subordinated to the Tomis metropolitan.
The chronology of Roman objectives: the Principate (four phases, between the 1st – 3rd centuries AD); Tetrarchy a fundamentis reconstruction (end of the 3rd – beginning of the 4th ) and occupation until the beginning of the 7th century. The western fortress is in its last stage a middle-Byzantine fortification (10th – 12th centuries).
Ruinele cele mai vizibile pe teren și consacrate în literatura de specialitate, provin de la două fortificaţii, “Cetatea Mare” (Westbefestigung) şi “La Cetate” (Ostbefestigung). Cele două cetăți sunt situate la cca 500 m distanță una față de cealaltă. În Cetatea de Est (145 x 120 m), au fost efectuate săpături în 1865 ale unei misiuni guvernamentale franceze, care au avut ca rezultate identificarea mai multor clădiri, dintre care trei edificii creștine de cult de sec. VI p.Chr. Cetatea de Vest este practic necercetată (cca 150 x 80/100 m).
The ruins most visible on the ground and consecrated in the literature, come from two fortifications, “Cetatea Mare” (Westbefestigung) and “La Cetate” (Ostbefestigung). The two fortresses are located about 500 m apart from each other. In the eastern fortress (145 x 120 m), excavations were carried out in 1865 by a French governmental mission, which had as results the identification of several buildings, of which three Christian edifices from the 6th century AD. The western fortress is practically not researched (about 150 x 80/100 m).
Recently, as a result of multidisciplinary projects, the legionary fortress could be located (Legionslager) in the area between the so-called Eastern and Western fortresses and the civil habitation outside of it (Lagervorstadt). The short side is about 350 m, and the long one can be pointed out only partially. The plan of the site resulting from recent research is a complex one, one can delimit, besides the mentioned fortifications, the civil settlement, the tumular and flat necropolis (about 80 ha), a large aqueduct etc.
To integrate the archive data with those resulting from recent surveys, we collected data via drone with which we obtained oblique photos and a 3D model.
Recently, the discovery of a quadrangular fortification, 740 m (NE) x 735 m (SE) x 705 m (SW) x 780 m (NW), located about 2.5 km north of the Troesmis legionary camp, on the territory of Carcaliu commune, was reported.
Part of the study:
Ovidiu Țentea, Ioan C. Opriș, Florian Matei-Popescu, Alexandru Rațiu, Constantin Băjenaru, Vlad Călina, Frontiera romană din Dobrogea. O trecere în revistă și o actualizare, Cercetări Arheologice, Vol. 26, pag. 9-82, 2019, doi: https://doi.org/10.46535/ca.26.01
Bibliography
A. S. Ștefan, Troesmis, consideraţii topografice, BMI 40, 1971, 4, 43-52; Alexandrescu, Gugl 2016, 9–22; Alexandrescu, C.-G., Gugl, C., Kainrath, B. (Hrsg.), Troesmis I. Die Forschungen von 2010– 2014, Cluj-Napoca, 2016. Vezi în mod special capitolele 5. Überblick über die zwischen 2010 und 2014 erfolgten Aktivitäten, p. 75-87; 6. Die Ostbefestigung, p. 89-127; 7. Die Westbefestigung, p. 129-150; 8. Die kaiserzeitliche Siedlung (Legionslager und Lagervorstadt), p. 151-195; Gugl, Trognitz 2020, 109-120