EPHEMERIS NAPOCENSIS - Institutul de Arheologie şi Istoria Artei

Silvia Mustaţă, Sorin Cociş, Valentin Voişian
INSTRUMENTUM BALNEI FROM ROMAN NAPOCA.
TWO IRON VESSELS DISCOVERED ON THE SITE
FROM VICTOR DELEU STREET *
Silvia Mustaţă 1 , Sorin Cociş 2 , Valentin Voişian 3
Abstract: The two iron toilette vessels analysed in this article were discovered in Cluj‐Napoca during
the rescue excavations carried out on Victor Deleu Street between 1992 and 2001. Both of them correspond
from a stratigraphic viewpoint to the second stone phase of the two buildings researched on the site
which belonged to the residential area of the Roman town. Taking into account the context of discovery,
they were definitely in use in Napoca during the first three quarters of the 3 rd century AD. Due to
the rarity of such objects at the scale of the Roman Empire, the analysis focuses on the technical aspects
that the manufacturing process of such items implies (employing X-ray photography), on the parallels
from the rest of the Roman world and on the possible prototypes which might have influenced the development
of such shapes in iron.
Keywords: Napoca, iron vessels, instrumentum balnei, technology, prototypes
During archaeological research carried out in Cluj‐Napoca, Victor Deleu Street, two
iron vessels were discovered which will be the subject of the present article. The vessels are
unique in Roman Dacia and represent remarkable finds at the level of the Roman Empire.
The analysis will focus on the technical aspects that the objects imply as well as on parallels and
possible prototypes.
The site
The archaeological rescue excavations undertaken more or less continuously in Cluj‐Napoca,
Victor Deleu Street (Pl. I/1) between the years 1992 and 2001 revealed important information
about the evolution of the ancient town of Napoca 4 . Besides the medieval and modern habitation
*
A preliminary version of this paper was published in Instrumentum. Bulletin du Groupe de travail européen sur
l’artisanat et les productions manufacturées dans l’Antiquité (see: MUSTAȚĂ ET ALII 2012). The authors would like
to express their gratitude towards dr. Cosmin Onofrei and resident Dan Duma for their help in X-raying the objects
and towards dr. Mariana Egri and Szilamér Péter Pánczél for the useful discussions referring to the prototypes.
1
“Babeş-Bolyai” University, Cluj‐Napoca, RO; e-mail: silvia_mustata@yahoo.com.
2
Institute of Archaeology and Art History Cluj‐Napoca, Romanian Academy Cluj Branch, M. Kogălniceanu
str. 12–14, 400084, Cluj‐Napoca, Cluj county, RO; e-mail: scocis@yahoo.com.
3
National Museum of Transylvanian History, Constantin Daicoviciu str. 2, 400020, Cluj‐Napoca, RO;
e-mail: vvoisian@yahoo.com.
4
For the preliminary excavation reports see: COCIŞ ET AL. 1995; COCIŞ ET AL. 1996; COCIŞ ET AL.
1997; COCIŞ ET AL. 1998; COCIŞ ET AL. 1999; COCIŞ ET AL. 2002. See also: RUSU-BOLINDEŢ 2007,
97–98; GĂZDAC ET AL. 2010, 7–8.
Ephemeris Napocensis, XXII, 2012, p. 235–251