Archaeologia Transylvanica Conference

Planned for the last weekend leading up to the Christmas Holidays, the three-day event entitled ‘Archaeologia Transylvanica’ is meant to signal the wrapping-up of the scientific activities for 2016 with a much anticipated book launching followed by a conference on various aspects of Prehistoric and Roman archaeology in Transylvania. The event will gather around 50 specialists in different fields pertaining to archaeology from Romaniaand abroad.

To see the programme click on the link: program-2

Aerial archaeology conference

Even though we are pretty worked up at the excavation, the Roman sites of Mureș county cannot remain absent at the Annual Meeting of the AARG (Aerial Archaeology Research Group), held in Pilsen (CZ) between the 7th and 9th of September, 2016.

The topic is of course aerial archaeology, and we will be represented by one of our colleagues and Máté Szabó from the University of Pécs, who will present a poster entitled: The Roman military site from Sighișoara (Romania) – an aerial archaeological approach.

The programme of the event is available here:

https://sites.google.com/site/aargpilsen2016/

Roman Military Equipment Conference

The nineteenth edition of the international conference entitled Roman Military Equipment Conference (ROMEC) took place in Saint Andrews, Scotland, between the 6^th and 11^st of June 2016, organized by the School of Classics of the University of St Andrews. As the title suggests, the conference was focusing on general and particular problems related to the army, armour and military equipment of the Roman era with special regards to the cavalry.

Two members of the Roman Limes Research Centre took part in this event, presenting a poster with the topic: “Newly discovered Military Equipment along the Eastern Limes of Roman Dacia”.

Conference about glass furnaces in Villa Borg, Saarland

In the Archaeological Park Roman Villa Borg in Saarland (Germany) specialists had been working for years on Roman glass-making experimental archaeology. This process culminated between the 11^th and 12^th of June 2016 in a conference, entitled: “Roman glass furnaces – contexts, finds and reconstructions in synthesis”. Besides many other interesting discussions, some of our team-members also held presentations about their results.

The meeting was intended to gather information about Roman glass furnaces and workshops from many provinces in order to gain new insights into this ancient industry.

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.