STUDIUL ARHEOLOGIC ŞI ANTROPOLOGIC AL MORMINTELOR DE INCINERAŢIE PREFEUDALE (SECOLUL VIII) DE LA ALBA IULIA - "STAŢIA DE SALVARE"
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ANTROPOGICAL STUDY OF THE PREFEUDAL GRAVES OF INCINERATION (THE 8th CENTURY) FROM ALBA IULIA - "THE AMBULANCE STATION"

Summary/Abstract: The archaeological diggings out in the spring of 1980 in the west part of the „Ambulance Station” uncovered 186 Roman graves and about 358 funeral complexes from the 8th – 11th centuries. The early stage of the cemetery is illustrated only by three cinerary urns, uncovered in the north side of the block of flats B 13, Victoria Avenue. The funerary graves dug out at a small depth (0,20 – 0,40 m) have their outlines unprecised (M 256), oval (M 256), with the dimension of 0,60 x 0,70 m, or circular (M 522), with a diameter of about 0,40 m. Each grave contains the remains of a cinerary urn. In the grave 256, the urn represented only the inferior third restorable part and it was laid with the opening upward. The urn was only half filled with 376 bony calcinated remains having the size of small splinters (300), medium size (50) and big ones (26). The neurocranium comprising 26 fragments and the postcranian skeleton are proved by 20 large remains, resulting from the diaphysis the thighbones and shinbones, 52 splinters of humerus, radius and cubitus and a fragment from a vertebral piece. The general aspect of the ossious pieces and the closed sagital suture ascribe them to a forty or fifty-year old groun-up male. In the second grave (M 456), the urn, broken at the funeral pyre, is ascertained by only 19 fragments resulting from lateral inferior parts. The funeral inventory is made up of the offering of ceramic fragments, 58 splinters resulting from calcinated human bones and a small heap of 220 snail shells. The anthropological study of the bones has determined two large fragments, six medium pieces and twenty small splinters. The cephalic part is not represented, but a diaphysal fragment of the thighbone and some splinters from diaphysis of the bones of humerus and shinbone belong to the postcranian skeleton of a six or seven-year-old child (infans I). The grave 522 contains fragments of two vases broken at the place of incineration, a small heap of bones and pieces of coal. The bones contain very strongly calcinated remains of small size (100), medium (30) and big ones (21). The neurocranium is illustrated by 11 fragments of the occipital and parental bones and the postcranian skeleton comprises diaphysal parts of thighbone (5) and shinbone (4) as well as 29 small splinters from the diaphysis of the humerus, radius and cubitus bones. The bones belonged to a teenager (juvenus) probably a male.

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