Fieldwork at Novae 2013

Abstract

Novae is located in northern Bulgaria, not far from modern Svištov. This Roman legionary fortress of the legio i italica and Late Antique town in the province of Moesia inferior has been investigated for more than 50 years. The 2013 campaign (1 August – 14 September) was the third one at the relatively new Sector 12 (Fig. 1), wherefieldwork was initiated in 2011. 2 There, weattempted at establishing whether the principal structure was the house of the immunes, 3 legionary barracks (possibly of the first cohort), 4 or something altogether different During the 2013 campaign, the investigated area (Fig. 2) was enlarged towards the east and south, making certain adjustments to the initial plan after, as a somewhat nasty surprise, the western quarter of the trench had been filled in to build a road by construction workers preparing the reconstruction of the principia nearby. The area measures ca. 900 m2 after the fieldwork of 2013, when a surface of around 250 m2 was uncovered. There is ample evidence for the early phase of the legionary camp, built in earth and timber, 5 both in small finds as well as remains of architecture, although the latter is hard to read because it was largely overbuilt in the following stages of development. It is quite evident that the first phaseconsisted exclusively of wooden constructions. Many post holesare visiblein the virgin soil of yellow loess, sometimes aligned with the remains of beam walls. In some cases, the wallsareso closeto each other that we might have the traces of a wooden cistern without aqueduct for collecting rainwater, like in other camps 6 (Fig. 3). The early dating of these structures is supported by 14 C probes. The small finds and pottery from this phase include large amounts of storage amphorae, glass, some bits of jewellery and Italic terra sigillata, mostly from garbage pits. This assemblage, along with the somewhat repetitive patterns in the occurrence of post holes and the lack of indications for any of the larger constructions of a legionary fortress, lead us to believe that soldier barracks or storage buildings were located here.