Noi descoperiri aparținând epocii dacice, în perimetrul Dealului Netotului (Petrești, mun. Sebeș, jud. Alba)
New Discoveries from the Dacian Period, in the Boundary of Netotului Hill (Petrești, Sebeș Municipality, Alba County)

Summary/Abstract: Starting from recent discoveries made in the area of Petrești (Petersdorf, Sebeș Municipality, Alba County), the present study aims to add to the specialized bibliography dedicated to the Dacian period in the Sebeș Valley, but also to the one dedicated to the phenomenon of detectorism on the territory of Romania. The discovered artifacts are representatives for the Dacian civilization, developed in the Transylvanian intracarpathian area. The authors present 8 Dacian metal artifacts, discovered by a detectorist from Sebeș, which provided important data and information that proved to be helpful in the reconstruction of a segment of history of the Netotului Hill, on which several roads functioned in Antiquity, that ensured the connection between the area of the Dacian fortresses in the Șureanu Mountains and the Mureș Valley. A very well-preserved tetradrachm of the Aiud-Cugir type, which was made of silver with a very high title, which brings new perspectives about the monetary problematics of the Dacian coinage, especially the one who imitates the Celtic coinage. This type of coin is very rare.Two exceptional sica-type curved-daggers, with bird representations, both belongs to type “C”, are the most representative from a geographical point of view and in terms of number of specimens from the North-Danubian Padea-Panagjurski-Kolonii area.One iron billhook, a pruning knife, a bronze link with knots, a dacian-type horse bit and an iron axe, with cross brackets, are the next artifacts presented in the study. By their typology and morphology, they belong to the era of the 1st century BC – 1st century AD, in which Valea Sebeșului was part of the complex defensive system of the “Dacian State”, with the strong fortress from Căpâlna, who is situated at 9 kilometers from Petrești, on the Sebeș River.The phenomenon of detectorism is not a new one, but it captures a paradigm shift in the case of what we can define as the need for the efficient management of relations between the public institutions of the Romanian State – with clearly defined responsibilities regarding the protection of the national cultural heritage – and the owners (and holders!) of metal detectors, interested in using these devices for the purpose of discovering artifacts of an archaeological nature. The lack of regulation of this activity, corroborated with the reality of an incomplete archaeological repertoire at the national level (a reality also aggravated by the constant disinterest in the realization of this essential and mandatory tool), to which is added an unusual intensification, impossible to anticipate in the early 2000s, of the phenomenon generated of the use of metal detectors, causes the number and heritage importance of artifacts discovered by chance by the owners of these devices to increase exponentially. The consequences of this unfortunate simultaneity: the “enrichment” of public collections with impressive amounts of artifacts, more or less decontextualized (in the happy situations in which the discoverers hand them over, according to the law!); the proliferation of private, illegal and quasi-unknown collections; the trafficking of cultural goods to the black markets of antiquities, a phenomenon with complex implications.

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