Most people never heard
the name Viminacium – not surprising for who would be looking for it in Serbia?
Tourists are not exactly flocking into that country which is not high on the
priority list of the archaeologists either. The Balkans are a true stepchild of Europe.
When Alexander campaigned against the people north of Macedonia in 335 BC, his march took him across the Ister (Danube) River. After subduing the Getae, he led his army back to camp where he received many envoys from other tribes along the Danube. The Celts from the Adriatic coast also visited the young king with messages of friendship, maybe including the tribes living in what was to become Viminacium.
Viminacium originated
as a Celtic settlement on which the Romans built their fort in the early 1st
century AD. It eventually grew to become the capital of the Roman province of Moesia with a population reaching up to
30,000 people. The site is hidden under the fertile fields outside of the village of Stari Kostolac
roughly 50 km
east of Belgrade.
Situated south of the Danube
River, it occupied an exceptional
position at the crossroads of a flourishing communication and trade network on Rome’s northern frontier.
As no systematic
excavations were ever carried out, all we have are tens of thousands of
fragmentary and occasional finds. The majority of the artifacts come from the
city’s necropolis which counts some 14,000 tombs - one of the largest in the region.
Serbia, like its neighbors,
does not have the infrastructure, the means, or perhaps the will to invest in
the country’s past. Useless to point out that illegal digs are frequent.
So far, scanning of the
area has revealed the presence of the Roman Imperial
Palace, the Roman Baths,
an amphitheater, a hippodrome, several temples, a mint, and a fleet of ships.
Simultaneously, the ten-meter-wide colonnaded Decumanus has been located,
complete with its sewage system. It also showed traces of a triumphal arch
erected in 195 AD to honor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, better known as Emperor Caracalla. An inscription to that effect was found nearby.
Otherwise, much is left
to be discovered as only two percent has been explored by
‘experts’.
Meanwhile, the locals
dug out and reused Roman bricks bearing their recognizable stamp to build their
own walls and houses. Even mosaics and other items served today’s needs. Nearby
mining projects, a recent coal project, and a power plant function
unhindered, it seems.
As recent as 2020, a ship from the first
century BC had been recovered about two kilometers away, according to the
article in Phys.org
News. In the summer of 2023 another ship, 20 meters long and 3.5 meters wide was
discovered. This was a flat-bottom vessel powered by oars and sail that
has not yet been dated.
The decline of the
ancient city of Viminacium
was triggered by the invasion of the Huns in the mid-5th century AD. By the time the Slavs settled in this area at the beginning of the 7th
century, the busy Roman settlement was entirely abandoned.
[Pictures from Phys.org News]
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