Culture and Nature in Transylvania

Besides being the title of this short article, this was also the name of the interdisciplinary scientific workshop held in Cluj on the 22^nd-23^rd of April, 2016. It was organized by a Romanian-Norwegian project called Culture and Nature in Transylvania: Past and Future – that aims the conservation and revitalisation of cultural and natural heritage in North-Western Romania, mainly in Sălaj County.

So among art historians, geologists, biologists and ecologists, one of our team-members held a presentation about the relationship between the Roman limes and the Szeklers, based on our first-hand experience during field-work in these traditional villages.

Conference regarding the History of Archaeology in Alba Iulia

Most museums around here (and not only) have a rich history of their collections, usually starting with some zealous antiquarian and/or amateur archaeologist somewhere around the 19^th century. Such was the situation of the National Museum of the Unification in Alba Iulia, where during the Belle Époque Cserni Béla started a meticulous archaeological program to investigate Roman Apulum. On the 100^th anniversary of his death, researchers interested in the history of archaeology organized an international conference entitled “Adalbert Cserni and His Contemporaries. The Pioneers of Archaeology in Alba Iulia and Beyond”.

In between the new session of spring field-surveys, some of our team-members found some time to attend this event held in Alba Iulia from the 14^th of April until the 18^th. The presented subjects included a paper about the collection of Kovács Ferencz (important especially in the case of Călugerni), the different century-old sources for various types of stamped bricks and tiles from Călugerni and the nationalistic and imperialistic influences on the archaeology of the Belle Époque in Transylvania. Around 50 participants from 6 countries (from Great Britain to Russia) made the event truly of value and also highly enjoyable.

Presenting interdisciplinary results on the next level: ESAS 2016

Lately, the XRF and FTIR spectroscopic investigations of iron slag finds from Brâncovenești, Călugăreni and Vătava (mentioned in the previous post) were amended by ICP-OES (inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry) and completed with EPR (electron paramagnetic resonance) analysis.

These new results had to be made public, and we found just the right place for this: the European Symposium on Atomic Spectrometry, held in the beautiful town of Eger, Hungary, between the 31^st of March and the 2^nd of April, 2016. The paper was presented in the form of a poster, by one of our team-members.

The scale of the conference was quite impressive, uniting around 200 of the top researchers of atomic spectrometry from all over the world.

XXI. International Scientific Conference of Young Engineers

Nothing shows better how interdisciplinary this project is than the fact that some of our colleagues together with chemists and other specialists took part in the XXI. International Scientific Conference of Young Engineers, held in Cluj-Napoca, on the 17-18^th of March, 2016.

The presentation’s topic consisted of the archaeometric analysis of iron slags discovered during the recent excavations at Brâncovenești, Călugăreni and Vătava. As part of the archaeometallurgical investigations, the samples were subjected to FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectroscopy and surface XRF (X-ray fluorescence) spectroscopic investigations in order to approximate their mineralogical composition (FTIR) and to determine their elemental composition and inhomogeneity (XRF).

Ten years together. Archaeology and Geophysics

Ten years have been passed since a very fruitful and efficient collaboration started between the geophysic specialists of the Institute of Geography and Earth Science at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest and archaeologists of our research team.  Everything started at another important Roman military site of Dacia, in Porolissum which has been followed by many geophysicial surveys in the eastern Roman limes sector from Mureș County. Many important scientific results, frendship and a very trustful collaboration – so could one sum up this long period together. On this occasion, our geophysisist  colleague from the Department of Geophysics and Space Science from the Eötvös Loránd University organised a very interesting and warm conference aimed to commemorate this outstanding collaboration. On the 16th of November 2015 friends and colleagues met in Budapest to discuss the common experience and scientific results of the 10 years.  During these disscussions it came out very clear how well does geophysical surveys and  non-distructive surveying methods  complete and help the archaeological investigation . One of our colleague held also a presentation about these  interdisciplinar investigations in the eastern limes of the Roman Dacia, especially in Mureș County.