Programme & Abstracts

This paper presents the results of long-term archaeological investigations conducted since 2014 in the western gate sector (porta principalis sinistra) of the Roman military fortress of Novae on the Lower Danube limes. The research focuses on the area enclosed by the gate, the via principalis, and the via sagularis, demonstrating that from the early Principate to Late Antiquity this zone functioned as a key shared space where movement, logistics, administrative activities, and social practices intersected.

Central to the study is a building complex that underwent multiple construction phases and functional transformations. Initially used as a storehouse, it later functioned as scholae associated with the first cohort. During the Late Roman period, the area experienced intensive architectural reconfiguration, including the addition of a Late Roman building decorated with polychrome wall plasters. This annex significantly expanded the complex and introduced a different character and functional context. Excavations in 2024 revealed a hoard of over 1,000 coins within this building, whose decorative style closely parallels that of a richly decorated villa located immediately outside the western fortification wall.

Analysis of spatial organization, architecture, and material culture suggests that the western gate sector of Novae constituted a permeable zone in which military, administrative, and civilian practices converged, illuminating processes of interaction, adaptation, and visual cultural transfer along the Lower Danube limes.

A new corpus of Latin inscriptions in the National Museum in Warsaw is currently being prepared. The project explores not only texts, but also the materiality and collection histories of monuments. In this paper we analyse two tombstones of equites singulares Augusti, whose post-antique biographies illustrate how Roman inscriptions were used to construct notions of Romanitas in northern Europe (grant 2025/57/N/HS3/03076 of the National Science Centre, Poland).

One tombstone, brought from Italy for a Polish aristocrat’s lapidarium, was later confiscated by Russian authorities and lost for decades. The other, probably from the Lateran necropolis, served as a teaching aid in a provincial German school. The 20th century brought them together in a “central collection of antiquities” in Warsaw, which aimed to underline Polish ties with the classical tradition.

The epitaphs commemorate horsemen probably from the Danubian provinces, whose inscriptions reflect the complex cultural identities of members of a close-knit, yet diverse élite group. However, the acquisition of those tombstones for northern European collections depended less on their individual biographies than on their mode of communication: the use of Latin and a common visual language. Thus, men once foreigners in Rome, were perceived, centuries later, as textbook Romans

Between 2001 and 2004 a Roman military camp was excavated along the river Sava near Obrežje on the road leading from Italy via Emona and on to Siscia, a strategically very important position, situated on today’s border to Croatia at Bregana.

Archaeological investigations revealed a nearly 7-hectare camp (approx. 323 × 215 m) with a well-preserved double ditch on three sides and a single ditch on one side.

The establishment of the camp is most probably linked to two military actions: the end of the occupation of Pannonia in 14-8 BC and the Pannonian-Dalmatian insurrection in 6-9 AD.

Nearly half of all artefacts from the camp are ceramic. Terra sigillata is rare, most examples being cups of the Sarius form. Thin-walled pottery is far more common. Amphorae are also rare. Two-handled jugs probably served as transport containers, likely imported from central or southern Italy. Bowls, tripods, and lids are rare. Most numerous are cooking pots, though many likely functioned as storage or transport vessels rather than for cooking.

Based on recent archaeological excavations, this paper examines the Late Roman site of Castra (Castra ad Fluvium Frigidum) within the broader patterns of connectivity between northern Italy and the Danubian regions in Late Antiquity. Although located in Italy, Castra occupied a key position on communication routes linking the Adriatic hinterland with the south-eastern Alpine corridors and the inland provinces.

The paper analyses Castra in terms of its architectural development and functional role. The Late Roman fortress was not constructed on the site of an earlier legionary camp, but developed from a pre-existing road station (mansio), which sets it apart from many fortified sites along the imperial frontiers. At the same time, the construction phases, defensive layout, and spatial organisation of Castra correspond with broader Late Roman concepts of fortification and infrastructure. Similar approaches are evident at fortified sites along the Danubian frontier dating from the late third to the fifth century.

By situating Castra in this wider context, the paper explores how architectural ideas and strategic solutions circulated across different regions of the Empire. Castra is thus understood not as an isolated Italian site, but as part of a wider Late Roman landscape shaped by mobility, communication, and the control of movement.

Viminacium was one of the most important Roman military bases on the Danube limes. It was established as a legionary fortress that primarily served as the home of Legio VII Claudia. Alongside the fortification, a civilian settlement developed and eventually became the capital of the provinces of Moesia Superior and later Moesia Prima. Recent archaeological excavations suggest that the legionary fortress was abandoned during the Late Roman period. This paper addresses the results of the latest investigations in the western annexe of the Viminacium settlement. Archaeological excavations, combined with non-destructive survey methods, indicate that this area was used to construct a new fortification on the right bank of the Mlava River in the first half of the 4th century. Particular attention is devoted to an octagonal tower situated along the western rampart. Monumental towers of this form are extremely rare in the region. To date, the closest parallels are known from fortified imperial palaces in eastern Serbia, dated to the Tetrarchic period. Besides presenting new data on the architectural remains, this study discusses the possible functional and symbolic reasons for the construction of such a tower at Viminacium and reconsiders the location of the legion in Late Antiquity.

Within the Archaeological Research of site Timacum Minus near Knjaževac (Serbia), systematic excavations were conducted in the central administrative and command building (principia) in order to clarify the phases of its construction, transformation, and reuse over several centuries of the fort’s existence. The younger building, by its architectural characteristics was most likely erected during the reign of Constantine and his sons. It was certainly constructed on the foundations of an earlier principia. During Late Antiquity, a significant functional change occurred: by the end of the fourth century, due to barbarian devastation and the withdrawal of the population within the fortifications, the principia lost its administrative role and was converted into an economic facility. Excavations identified damage caused by the attack of Uldis’ Huns in 409, after which the western part of the building was restored and transformed into a ground-level food storage facility. The discovery of large quantities of carbonized grain, the arrangement of massive ceramic pithoi, as well as the walls and flooring of a later annex, confirm its function as a horreum. In the immediate vicinity, additional storage buildings and workshops were established, remaining in use until the final destruction of the fortification during Attila’s attack in 441/443.

This study examines settlement dynamics at Războieni-Cetate, located along the Mureș River in central Romania, an important trade and military corridor in Roman Dacia and the site of the fort of ala I Batavorum milliaria. Using archaeological survey data from the Romanian National Archaeological Record (RAN), the research explores how Iron Age settlement strategies influenced Roman occupation of the landscape. Rather than representing a radical break, Roman colonization shows strong continuity with pre-Roman settlement patterns, particularly in the exploitation of salt resources at nearby Salinae (Ocna Mureș).

The Roman fort was strategically positioned on slightly elevated terrain, overseeing a river crossing and controlling access to surrounding resources. GIS-based analyses, including buffer zones, least-cost path modelling, and viewshed analysis, reveal a concentration of settlements near the fort and the salt source, while more distant areas supported agriculture and secondary resource exploitation. River and road networks facilitated mobility, trade, and connectivity, integrating local and regional landscapes into a coherent economic and social system. Overall, the evidence demonstrates that Roman military and economic infrastructure complemented, rather than replaced, existing settlement patterns, contributing to broader discussions on continuity and integration in the Danubian provinces.

This talk tries to highlight the new developments in research north of the Lower Danube and east of the Carpathian Mountains. Recently the dimension and impact of Roman influence in and on the Barbaricum had been reconsidered. What seems to be probable for the north-western Barbaricum (as indicated i.a. by H.U. Voß, A. Rau or X. Pauli Jensen) is recently mirrored in the findings from north-eastern Romania, Moldova and especially Ucraine: The Marcomannic Wars precipitated the Roman Order of the World into a huge Crises. The “Hinterland” of the Barbarian World descended into chaos. New players, like the Costoboci and the Vandals appeared, the complex ethnogenesis of the “Goths” was imminent, as old alliances and existing contacts between barbarian groups far away from the Limes became obsolete. The decline of the ancient World Order and the attempts to establish a new one are mirrored in the spectrum and amount of “Roman Imports” discovered in recent years east of the Carpathians.

Portable reliefs constitute a distinctive category within the material culture of the Mithraic cult. These small-scale objects could be carried by individual worshippers, enabling personal devotional practice during travel and in locations lacking an organized Mithraic community. Such finds are attested across the Roman Empire and are particularly well represented in Pannonia, suggesting their widespread use. Typically made of high-quality marble, but also of chased metal, bronze, or silver, these reliefs depict the central cult image alongside narrative scenes from the Mithras Vita. This paper examines the Pannonian material with particular attention to issues of mobility, military circulation, and individual religious practice, proposing a typological classification and highlighting regional patterns within the broader Mithraic visual tradition.

Les Silvanae constituent les équivalents onomastiques féminins de Silvanus. Absentes de la littérature antique, elles sont néanmoins bien attestées par l’épigraphie et l’iconographie entre le IIᵉ et le IIIᵉ siècle ap. J.-C. Leur présence est majoritairement concentrée en Pannonie, où l’on recense vingt-deux attestations, et plus marginalement en Dacie, avec quatre occurrences, principalement à Vlpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa. Cette communication propose un état des lieux des sources archéologiques attestant l’existence d’un culte des Silvanae dans ces deux provinces, afin de les comparer et de déterminer le rôle et la place de ces divinités dans la religion romaine. Il apparaît qu’elles ne sont pas systématiquement associées à Silvanus, ce qui plaide en faveur d’un culte autonome. Elles portent fréquemment l’épiclèse Augustis, suggérant une intégration au cadre religieux impérial. En Pannonie, les Silvanae sont par ailleurs souvent associées aux Quadruviae, divinités liées aux carrefours, soulevant la question de la nature de leur relation. L’étude interrogera ainsi les liens entre Silvanae et Silvanus, ainsi qu’entre Silvanae et Quadruviae, tout en mettant en lumière les spécificités régionales entre Pannonie et Dacie, à partir de vingt-six attestations archéologiques.

The figure of the Heros Equitans occupies a significant position in ancient visual culture and is most often interpreted through heroic posture, weaponry, and narrative action. This paper redirects attention to a frequently overlooked element of equestrian imagery: the saddle. Commonly dismissed as a minor or purely functional detail, the saddle functions instead as a dense visual marker with significant iconographic and cultural implications.

Through close visual analysis of selected reliefs and statues, the paper demonstrates how the presence or absence of the saddle, its structural complexity, contribute to the construction of heroic identity, pointing out temporality, status, and cultural affiliation, mediating between mythic heroism and historically grounded cavalry practice. In provincial and hybrid contexts, such details reveal processes of cultural transfer and localization that complicate standardized readings of the mounted hero.

Methodologically, the paper foregrounds the analytical productivity of minor iconographic elements and advances a materially attentive, image-based approach to Heros Equitans imagery, including the so-called Thracian Rider. It concludes that subtle equipment details may also serve as diagnostic criteria for distinguishing between small- and medium-sized funerary and votive reliefs where inscriptions or secure archaeological contexts are lacking.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, during the construction of the Đerdap hydro-power plant in the Iron Gates region, a large-scale rescue excavation was carried out. Many Roman settlements, forts and other structures of the Roman limes on the Danube were excavated. After the Đerdap lake was formed, they remained sunken. One of the sites that shared this fate was Campsa. The late Roman fortification (late 3rd – end of the 6th century) revealed remarkable architectural traces and numerous interesting small finds. The research also identified remains from the end of the 1st to the second half of the 3rd century.

A sanctuary dedicated to Hercules certainly belongs to the most interesting discoveries at Campsa, dating to the period of the Severan dynasty. In the northern part of the excavated late Roman fort, several finds indicating the existence of a sanctuary were unearthed, including a stone altar, an oil-lamp with the image of Hercules fighting the Nemean lion and a pottery sherd depicting Hercules with a lion’s skin over his shoulder and holding a club. The figural decoration on the sherd is performed in the typical manner of the Roman provincial art, executed in the manner of the so-called snake-vessels.

Female religiosity in the Roman provinces remains an emergent field of study. Although the situation presented in anachronistic and Rome-centric literary sources offers limited insight, epigraphic and archaeological evidence – with the developing adoption of new interpretative tools and perspectives into ancient religious studies, provide us with a much more nuanced picture. The aim of this paper is to provide a preliminary presentation of the religious activity in Latin of women in the Danubian provinces of the Balkans. As a starting point, the methodology employed in my doctoral dissertation on the religious activity of women in Dalmatia will be applied; this utilised a quasi-biographical approach to each female dedicant in order to shift the perspective in favour of the dedicants rather than the deities. On this basis, female dedicants from both Moesias and Dacia will be identified. The study will also attempt to address several key questions: what were the potential religious intentions and motivations of these women? What were their ethnic and social backgrounds? Furthermore, were there any priestesses among them? Consequently, an attempt will be made to determine whether – in the case of female religious activity – one may speak of ‘religious exchange’ or shared similarities across these neighbouring provinces.

Auch in den westlichen Provinzen des Reiches stellt die kultische Verehrung der Kaiser und ihrer domus ein vielschichtiges, wenngleich nicht derart ausgeprägtes Phänomen wie im östlichen Reichsteil dar. Als verbindendes Element zwischen römischer und einheimisch-lokalen Kulturtraditionen ist sie insbesondere in Hinblick auf ihre integrative Funktion von besonderer Relevanz und somit in kultureller, historischer wie auch sozial- und religionsgeschichtlicher Perspektive von Bedeutung.

Während Praktiken der Kaiserverehrung vor allem in den östlichen Provinzen auf mehreren Ebenen fassbar werden, sind es im Westen vorzugsweise jene im munizipalen Umfeld mit Nennung der dafür zuständigen Kaiserpriester sowie inschriftlich dokumentierte Verehrungspraktiken im privaten Bereich. Darüber hinaus scheinen mitunter auch vereinzelt Vereine (collegia) unter anderem mittels Feierlichkeiten und Zeremonien zu Ehren von Kaisern und des Kaiserhauses zur Verbreitung des Kaiserkultes in den Provinzen beigetragen zu haben. Hinweise zu diversen Aspekten des Kaiserkultes finden sich sowohl in Noricum als auch in Pannonia Superior, wenngleich die Quellenbasis gerade für Noricum nicht allzu umfangreich bzw. aussagekräftig ist.

The suovetaurilia, a sacrificial ritual involving a pig, a ram, and a bull, was among the most ancient practices of Roman religion. Nevertheless, it appears only infrequently in the provincial record. In the territory of present-day Bulgaria, three votive monuments have been identified as evidence of its presence: one from Ratiaria in Upper Moesia and two from Lower Moesia, from Basarbovo and Suhindol. The reliefs from Ratiaria and Basarbovo depict a procession of the three sacrificial animals and are dedicated to Jupiter and Juno. However, their iconography diverges from conventional Roman representations. At Ratiaria, the deities are depicted as riders in a chariot, while the Basarbovo relief portrays Jupiter on horseback and Juno mounted on a stag. The presence of these unusual depictions, in conjunction with alterations in the order of the animals, suggests a provincial reinterpretation of the suovetaurilia. This reinterpretation is indicative of local Thracian religious traditions, rather than official Roman cult practice.

The main aim of the paper is to highlight the challenges of identifying Greco-Roman deities in regions where their cults were introduced through successive waves of colonization, focusing on the provinces of Moesia Inferior and Thrace. In these areas, sustained interaction between local traditions, Hellenic civic culture, Roman imperial structures, military mobility, and migration did not simply reproduce established cults, but generated new, creolized religious forms. As a result, divine identities could become layered and fluid, resisting clear attribution to a single cultural framework.

The study reviews current methods used to identify anepigraphic representations and assesses their strengths and limitations. It analyzes a broad range of artifacts that mention and/or depict Athena (Minerva), most of them originating from multi-ethnic urban centers inhabited by immigrants, veterans, and Hellenized local elites. In such contexts, the goddess’ image and associations were not merely translated between different traditions, but reshaped through the processes of adaptation, reinterpretation, and selective appropriation.

By addressing issues of divine identity, attribution, and cult reconstruction in the absence of abundant epigraphic or literary evidence, the paper argues that uncertainty is not only methodological but intrinsic to provincial religious life, where “Athena” and “Minerva” may reflect overlapping yet locally reconfigured identities.

The paper explores the transformation of the cross from a primarily symbolic sign of Christian identity into a permanent stone grave marker in the Roman province of Scythia. The study focuses on the earliest archaeological evidence of funerary crosses and situates them within the broader process of Christianization in the Late Roman period. By analyzing form, material, inscriptions, and archaeological context, the topic highlights how funerary crosses reflect both religious change and continuity with earlier Roman burial traditions. These monuments demonstrate the growing visibility of Christianity in the public and funerary landscape, as well as local adaptations of the cross as a marker of faith, memory, and identity. Overall, the emergence of stone funerary crosses marks a significant shift in commemorative practices and illustrates the integration of Christian symbolism into everyday life and death in Scythia.

The cult of Asclepius/Esculapius, during the Roman period, is very peculiar, since signs of it can be seen throughout the Empire, especially because many times it was spread by the legions, although identifying the god’s temples and sanctuaries is not as easy as one might expect. That’s exactly the case of the allegedly santuary at Apulum, where the Legion XIII Gemina was stationed. There, more than twenty inscriptions relating to the god were found, yet the exact place of the allegedly sanctuary remains unconfirmed. We will discuss the difficult in identifying such temples and sanctuaries not only in the case of Apulum but also throughout the Roman Empire.

Utilizzate fin da epoche remote, in età romana le antiche piste e i percorsi che collegavano l'Adriatico al Danubio furono inglobati in un complesso sistema di vie e infrastrutture, le cui funzioni erano quelle di garantire il controllo delle province illiriche, la solidità delle frontiere, la continuità e la sicurezza delle comunicazioni e degli scambi commerciali e culturali.

A partire dalla prima epoca imperiale, infatti, fu sviluppata una rete di vere e proprie strade, attrezzate con i servizi essenziali per i viaggiatori, tra cui luoghi di cambio e di sosta, ponti e guadi, stazioni doganali e di controllo, e caratterizzate dalla presenza di piccoli insediamenti distribuiti tra i centri maggiori, che fungevano da terminali delle singole tratte.

Nonostante lo sviluppo di questo sistema, il viaggio continuò a essere una fonte di apprensioni, difficoltà e pericoli per coloro che viaggiavano lungo le strade. Mentre la documentazione letteraria antica sembra avere prestato scarsa attenzione ai dettagli delle esperienze vissute dai viaggiatori che attraversavano queste regioni, le testimonianze epigrafiche lasciate da alcuni di loro, benché con numerosi limiti, consentono di ricostruire un quadro più articolato e vivido.

Con questa comunicazione, si intends focalizzare l'attenzione su tali testi, che in forma diretta e immediata sono in grado di trasmettere la drammaticità degli eventi vissuti da coloro che, per ragioni assai diverse, spostandosi in una direzione o nell'altra, frequentavano le regioni comprese tra l'alto Adriatico e il bacino danubiano.