Unseen Romania

Adamclisi - Talking History

Adamclisi is one of Romania’s biggest archaeological sites, placed in the Constanta county, near the seaside. At the north of Adamclisi, in a place of wooded hills lies the  triumphal monument Tropaeum Traiani, built by the roman emperor Traian as an homage for the victory against the Dacians.

In ancient times, a Roman castrum named Civitas Tropaeensium was settled here and in 109 AD a monument named Tropaeum Traiani was built to commemorate the Roman Empire's victories over the Dacians. The city was the largest Roman city of Scythia Minor and became a municipium around the year 200, colonized with Roman veterans of the Dacian Wars. After being destroyed by the Goths, it was rebuilt during the rule of Constantine the Great and better defense walls, which defended the city successfully until the Avars sacked it in 587. After that moment, it ceased to be among the important cities of Dobrogea and was no longer mentioned for seven hundred years.

Etymology

The current name has a Turkish origin and it is an adaptation in Romanian of "Adam Kilisse" which means "the church of man" (when the Turkish people settled in this area, they thought the Ancient Roman monument was a church). Among the important monuments which certify the beginnings of the historical continuity of the Romanian people in the Danubian-Pontic territory, a special interest and a great value presents the concentration of monuments of material culture existing in the region of Adamclisi.

On the national road Constanta-Ostrov-Calarasi-Bucharest, before entering the village Adamclisi, at km 62, a paved ramification 1.5 km long leads the traveler to a plateau situated on the monument hill. Here, in a Dobrujda specific landscape, there is a famous triumphal monument Tropaeum Traiani, built by Romans in order to commemorate the victories against the Dacian coalition in 101-102 A.D.

In the center of the village Adamclisi there is the museum Tropaeum Traiani, inaugurated in 1977 on the occasion of the celebration of a hundred years of the state Independence of Romania. The modern building shelters and presents the original fragments of the monument and the archaeological evidence of the millenary mankind existence on the South territory of Dobrudja (Dobrogea). Finally, at about 600 m from the village entrance, going to Ostrov, on a plateau which borders on the East the Urluia valley, there can be seen the impressive ruins of the city Tropaeum Traiani.

The monument, the museum and the city represent one of the most important archaeological museum complexes. In the following lines we are going to do a useful duty to present them in the above order, which represents in the same time a suggestion for a visiting itinerary.

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