Stânca Topalu
Location: Topalu commune, Constanța county (RAN 63054.01, CT-I-s-B-02764)
The fortification is located on Stânca Topalu, on a promontory located 4 km north of Topalu village. Access is by road DJ 223, then 2 km along an agricultural road. The limestone massif on which the fortress is located is part of the Neojurasic Topalu Reef, an important geological reverse.
The Roman fortification had a quadrangular shape with sides of about 170 x 116 m, the ancient ruins being still visible on the surface in 1890. Much of the western and northern sides were destroyed by an old stone quarry, today only an area of about 0.66 ha remains of the monument. Grigore Florescu conducted a brief research in Topalu (in 1924 or 1927?), at the end of which he concluded that the construction system of the outer facing is very similar to that already found at the fortresses of Seimeni and Capidava. In 2006, a survey was conducted inside the fortification to obtain stratigraphic information. It is hard to say if the altar discovered in the Gălbiori – Stupina area could relate to one of the civil settlements near the fortification at Stânca Topalu (ISM V 56, Veturius Tertius, magister vici).
Recent attempts have integrated the said archaeological documentation, digital data collected via drone, as well as observations made on-site. They highlighted the unaltered part of the fortification, even an interior detail, a building with an apse (basilica ?).
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
Pârvan, V., Archäologische Funde im Jahre 1913. Rumänien, Archäologischer Anzeiger. Jahrbuch des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 29, 1914, Berlin, col. 430-431; Zahariade, Gudea 1997, 79; Gudea 2005, 448-449, Nr. 41; Opriș, I. C., Dobrinescu, C., Cetatea romană de la Stânca Topalu – cariera ”Margela” (sau ”Mariella”). Dosarul arheologic pentru o meritată reparație istorică, Cercetări arheologice 25, 2018, 181-204.