DOUĂ ALTARE VOTIVE ÎNCHINATE LUI IUPITER DESCOPERITE LA APULUM
TWO VOTIVE ALTARS DEDICATED TO JUPITER DISCOVERED AT APULUM

Summary/Abstract: On this archaeological note, the authors inform the specialists about the discovery from this year, on 28, Dr. Ioan Rațiu Street, of two votive monuments dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus. These were unearthed in a research carried out in the north-west of canabae/municipium Septimium Apulense, in its extramural area. We refer to two lime altars from Ighiu quarry (according to the looks of the stone), in secondary position, in a garbage pit (initially likely to be a fountain) noted Cx.1, dated to the post-Roman period (IVth-Vth centuries) due to greyish, scabrous ceramics.The first altar is dedicated to JOM by Aelius Maximus. The summit is decorated with acroteria that flanked a pediment. Two acanthus leaves are in the tympanum of the pediment. The text of the inscription bears a grammatical mistake of the lapicide, the nomen of the sponsor being rendered as Elius. The character does not appear anymore in the onomatology from Apulum. The inscription area was painted in red, its traces being evident especially in the area of the letters.A second altar is unfinished, bearing the inscription JOM, without the name of the sponsor. The summit has two puluini decorated with one rosette. There is poor penmanship on both monuments, even rough, specific to the late period, of the decline of the Roman life from Dacia from after the mid of the IIIrd century AD. Considering the rough writing and that they were unfinished (due to wrong writing of the nomen in the first, and lack of the sponsors’ name in the second), followed by their use again in the period after the retreat of the Roman authorities from Dacia, then abandoning in a post-Roman pit, led us to the conclusion that these might be a part of the last lots of monuments made in Apulum, and it would be no wonder that these to have been made during the last 10-15 years of the province, more precisely after 260.Likely, these had been made in a stone workshop researched by M. Blăjan in 1980, on the building of a home district nearby Stația de Salvare (Ambulance Station) of the modern city. This workshop was outside the settlement of canabae/municipium Septimium, north-west from it. It is possible that another votive altar, dedicated to Diana by a certain Martinus (IDR III/5, no. 53), to have been made in the same workshop, due to the striking similitude between the structure of the monuments and manner of writing (inclusively typos) from them.

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