Sarmisegetusa - Photo Album

Sarmisegetusa - Citadel & Sanctuary

After telling you a bit of the dacian history, it is now time to get to my journeys. The first one I want to share is my trip to Sarmisegetusa, the ancient capital of the Dacian state.  

Sarmisegetusa was the most important Dacian military & polictical centre. Constructed on the top of a crag, the citadel was the heart f the strategic defensive system.  The fortress is formed by huge stone blocks - murus dacicus - which was erected on five terraces, on an area of almost 30,000 m2. The civilians lived around the fortresss, down the mountain on man-made terraces.

Well, these are the facts... but here is the story I found. First of all, I want to tell you that it's pretty tricky to get there. It definitely is a days long trip and you should consider renting an off road, but still, consider yourself warned, the roads in Romania are pretty bad. You can do this all over Transylvania and I promise to post shortly a small rent-a-car list. 

No matter from where you are coming, you need to drive towards Hunedoara County driving down E68 or E79. Sarmisegetusa is on road 68 which crosses E68 in Hateg for example.

There are many road tags indicating Sarmisegetusa, and trust me, no matter how heavy the road is, this trip is definitely worth it. You need to drive up the mountain, because the citadel is situated 1200 m high. Although I would suggest to leave the car and walk. It's a great walk, about 6 miles long, there s a river on the right and a great forrest on the left. What could you want more? 

When you reach it you will find one f the most complex UNESCO monuments. The great Dacian sanctuary. You have to walk along the western gate all the way to the eatern gate which will lead you to a road through the forrest. What you discover behind the huge oak trees is spectacular. ... and by the way, make sure to take some sandwiches and water along because you wont find any deli's up there....

Why did the romans develop a problem with Dacia?

The Dacian capital Sarmisegetusa, is supposed to have been constructed somewhere around 1 BC, and it was somewhat like the society of classical Greece with added comfort. Except for their stonework and pluming , there is evidence that Dacia had a tight commerce rope to Greece as well as Rome, from where they imported all sorts of luxury items.

So what exactly got in the way of that healthy trading relationship the romans had with Dacia? It is said that the Emperor Augustus betrothed his daughter to a dacian chief... Where did it all go wrong? 

Well, here's a clue. The local use a different name for this part of the Carpathian mountains, they call it - the Metal Mountains. Yes, you've got it. The dacians were cursed with gold. And lots of it.  Deep within the mountains there lay some of the purest white gold, as well as quartz, copper, iron and opal. Gold had made Dacia rich, well at least its ruler. 

As legend tells us, king Decebalus had a pretty astonishing treasure stashed away at Sarmisegetusa,  it was vastly more then he needed or knew what to do with.  And that's where the romans come in. They had plenty of ideas. They just needed to get their hands on it.  And all they needed was an excuse...  As usual it involved borders. Where exactly did Rome end and Dacia begin?  Well certainly not where the dacians thought. 

At the end of the 1st AD the dispute got pretty nasty. Up til then, the dacian king Decebalus had managed to run diplomatic rings around the roman emperor. All that changed when the the top job in Rome got vacant and it was occupied by Trajan.  And Trajan had a small problem. He needed cash. Fast. And lots of it. The Roman Empire was on an economic decline. And the dacians were, well, sitting on a gold mine. Literally. Trajan just couldn't resist. He just had to exterminate them.

101 AD he took a first bite of the apple. A hard one. Same thing that happened 100 years before when the romans fought the barbaric germanians and underestimated them, happend to him. The romans couldn't breach the fortifications, so he had to pull back.

In 106 AD he returned with 13 Legions, that makes, round about 100.000 men. This wasn't a fight for conquest anymore. It was extermination. They finally succeeded in bringing the dacian walls down, so they burned and wrecked  everything on their way in. 

When Trajan was done, it's said that he emptied Dacia of 1.600t of gold and 3.000t of silver demolished the temples and burned the cities down. There wasn't anything left anymore of the dacian civilisation. Maybe just a memory.

But at least, Trajan now, had enough cash to pay for some nice military campaigns and also to pay Apollodor of Damascus' fee for the pretty column he had designed, especially for Trajan.

(This nice statue depicts the all mighty emperor Trajan and the simple people of Dacia with a cute little boy, bringing him flowers, a small token of consideration for wiping his friends & family of the face of the Earth. )

Extras

Trajans Column

About Trajans Column in Rome and the savage head hunters...

Now we have all heard of Trajans Column. It's this huge column in Rome depicting the great roman success over the ''barbarians'' who inhabited Dacia. This victory came slowly and painfully for the romans, it took them about 7-8 years to get there, due to the strong defense system the dacians, i mean the barbarians,  had. 

But let's get back to the column, the romans have many records about the Daco-Roman wars describing it as the fight with the savage head hunters who cut their victims heads off and stuck them on poles  No wonder the romans were terrorized by the savage barbarians behind those fortyfied city walls ... well,  except for the fact that on this column, the only savages that are shown cutting heads off and bragging about it, are the romans... This roman column is a public celebration of roman ruthlessness on a really grand scale, about 9 feet tall, depicting over 5200 figurines to be exact.

   

Now as I said before it is a record of the roman victory over the people of Dacia, the present Romania - the land of the Romans... Now if you are not a romanian, the chances to have ever heard of Dacia are quite slim, and this is so, because it is here where the romans applied the lesson they have learned in Germania 100 years before. 

   

They decided not only to conquer but to exterminate a whole ''barbaric'' civilization. And the romans did a fine job indeed, because the experts are trying really hard to piece together who the dacians, really were... After conquering the land, they colonized the remaining people, turned them into a province, instituted latin as the provinces' official language, enforced the roman pantheon and renamed everybody. Anyone who didn't agree, well... had to die. Quite simple. After taking all the gold they could find and sending the grand capture to Rome... which made Rome very happy of course... they had a good time exploiting the land for a couple of hundred years, until 275 AD when, the romans, suddenly packed up and left, leaving Dacia to the dacians, or was it, the romanians?!?

Extras

Lifestyle and more

I think the Dacians really enjoyed life... excepting all that fighting against the romans or other invaders. I believe they liked nice, pretty things, just like we do as well, they were in a sense perhaps, just a tiny bit superficial... just like we are now...

During the archaeological searches, which are still too few if you ask me, a great deal of clay vessels, original dated pottery with geometrical, floral and animal representations which are all a proof of their sense of decorating and improving the objects they used in the daily life. Just like the silver and gold jewels and  the handles of their weapons or the golden helmet which was discovered. It seems that gold was something they had plenty of... They ornamented the simplest object, like iron pegs or Blacksmith's tongs...

Their unending source of inspiration was nature. The stylized animal and vegetal prints are quite typical for them. They had certain preferences like the leaves, stems, wolves, snakes etc. Rarely anyone found any designs resembling a human figure.

As far as the partying goes, there are certain records by two historians (Theopompus and Iordanes) who claim that the Dacians used to take their guitars everywhere along and play them. There are also some records of ritual music, combining guitar music and vocals, performed by the Dacian priests. It is such a pity there are no written records of their song or chants, I mean that there aren't any reminiscences in the romanian folklore of today. Sucha pity there weren't any iPod's back then... 

After visiting so many relics, so many different, and yet so alike settlements/ archaeological sites all around Romania, I tend to have a special feeling toward the Dacians now. I think their civilisation, wasn't so different from ours today. They had: houses, taxes, ''churches'', hospitals, doctors and lawyers and architects, schools and kindergarden everything we have today plus a better understanding of the world surrounding them meaning plants, soil etc.

On one of my visits in a museum talking to the curator I found out, there have been discovered traces that the Dacians performed really complex surgical operations like the trepanations they had a very advanced understanding of herbs, and thought that you need to cure the soul not only the body in case of a disease... which sounds really smart to me...

It must've been really interesting to live back then... in a way, i can't help thinking, maybe they were living a better life than we are now with MacDonalds' & Co and all those Drugs everyone of use has tucked away in the bathroom, you know... just in case