Cristian-Aurel Roman : Lamps from Dacia Porolissensis I. The Roman Forts from Porolissum-Moigrad, Buciumi, Gilau, Samum-Casei Bibliotheca Musei Porolissensis VII, Zalau 2006, 180 pages with 7 figures in text and 23 plates (drawings and photographs) (ISBN 97399823 44)

This volume, in Romanian and English, was published last spring, with the occasion of the second International Congress of ILA at Zalău (Romania) and is representing the first issue of a monographic series looking to analyse the lychnological material from Dacia.The author is listing and analysing 198 lamps and other lighting devices discovered in the military milieu of Dacia Porolissensis, from the Roman conquest at the beginning of the 2nd century AD until the abandonment of the province after the middle of the 3rd century AD. The obvious question is why only the military sites have been chosen. Such particular attention should be explained by the higher interest of the Romanian archaeology for these sites during the last decades, compared with the civilian ones. A series of systematic excavations on military sites from this region are offering better stratigraphic references, allowing diachronic analyses of lamps’ use.

From a statistical point of view, most pieces are Firmalampen (around 50 %), being followed by wheel-made lamps (14 %), LoeschckeVIII type (11 %) and the lamps with volutes (9 %). All other categories (iron and bronze lighting devices, ceramic lamp-stands, plastic lamps, pieces with circular, rectangular or tubular body, hand-made lamps and moulds) represent together about 16 %, but none of them is going over 4 % from the total finds. Concerning the provenance of lamps found in Dacia Porolissensis, one has to note the high number of pieces coming from north Italic workshops or from their branches in Pannonia. It is possible that in the first instance the Italic lamps dominated, while later mostly pieces produced by workshops from nearby provinces have been imported. However, during the second or third decade of the 2nd centuryAD, the local production of lamps was settled. Therefore, the author is underlining the characteristic of Dacian production which combined Italic prototypes with original local elements.

As a conclusion, C.A. Roman’s volume constitutes a very useful instrument for understanding the use of lychnological material especially in the military milieu of Roman Dacia. Nevertheless the aim to publish other corpora of lamps from major sites or regions in Dacia is more than welcome, since they can help understanding the patterns of daily life in a frontier province of the Roman Empire.

Site conçu par Lorenz Baumer et François Queyrel et réalisé par Lorenz Baumer, 2006/7