Piese „uitate” din aşezarea 2 de la Bratei / “Forgotten” artefacts from settlement no. 2 at Bratei

Abstract

The present study presents 48 items discovered in Bratei – Settlement no. 2, and which, for objective reasons, were not included in the monograph regarding inhabiting features of the 12th– 13th centuries, published in 2009. The items belong to various categories, such as prick spurs – nine items, knives with peduncle for handles – 11 items, nails – nine items, a door lock, a hinge or lock, three different iron parts of door whose function is less clear, two iron buckles – one rectangular, and the other in the form of the letter “ D”, an arrowhead with tube for hafting, an ellipsoidal iron strike-a-light, a scissor, an iron horseshoe, a base of pot with signs in relief, as well as seven iron items whose function could not be determined due to their preservation. The vast majority of these items were uncovered in features dating in the 12th– 13th centuries. Spurs are undoubtedly the category of artefacts with the highest chronological and even numerical relevance in the settlement of Bratei, occupying the first place, with the exception of ceramics. Typologically, the prick spurs are part of the generic type with pyramidal thorn, along with two variants. Although the present items do not differ from those found in other contemporary sites, they are by far the most important ones for a better understanding of the specificity of Bratei settlement. In the same time, they also indicate that the Bratei settlement is actually belonging to a horizon of discoveries distributed in south-eastern Transylvania around the middle of the 12th century until the first part of the next century. In order to easily identify the features in which the objects were found, we used the same abbreviations like the ones in the original site documentation : B = dwelling or household annex ; Gr = pit ; S = trench – followed by year(s) when those feature(s) were excavated.