Veriga Lipsă. Descoperiri Padea-Panagjurski Kolonii din nord-vestul României. Pumnalul de tip sica de la Sighiștel, Bihor
The Missing Link. Padea-Panagjurski Kolonii Discoveries in North-Western Romania. The sica-type dagger from Sighiștel, Bihor County

Summary/Abstract: This article presents a recent discovery of a curved sica-type dagger. These weapons were part of the panoply of the warriors who built a cultural phenomenon known today, conventionally, as Padea-Panagjurski Kolonii, which began at the end of the 4th century BC and lasted until the conquest of the Dacian Kingdom by the legions of Emperor Trajan (106 AD).The dagger was discovered with a metal detector in the radius of Sighiștel village, Câmpani commune, Bihor County. The artifact belongs to type “C” of these daggers, and it is exceptional both in its manner of manufacture and in its place of discovery. On the blade of the dagger there was engraved an ornamentation specific to this type of weapon, namely the heads of a couple of facing birds, decorated with circles. Small pieces of semi-precious stone, most likely red jasper, were set into these recessed circles.The discovery of this dagger in the region signals the presence, sometime between the 2nd century BC and the beginning of the 1st century AD of a powerful warrior leader. It is the first discovery of its kind in a region very rich in hoards of Dacian silver coins and ornaments. The dagger completes the local landscape with the political, military and social landmarks existing in the rest of the Dacian Kingdom, being a real link between the center of the kingdom and the lands to the north.

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