Magdalensberg

The book contains a presentation of all preserved archaeological finds discovered in 1890 in Novo mesto on part of a road that until 1993 was the initial part of Ljubljanska cesta (Ljubljana road) and from then on the beginning of Seidlova cesta (Seidl's road), and of finds excavated in 1902 in the area of Okrajno glavarstvo (District board). The monograph also includes studies of some types of Late La Tène fibulae and a study on the relative chronology of the Late La Tène period.
The author suggests for the cemetery, which till now appeared in the literature under the name Beletov vrt, a new name "Beletov vrt cemetery with its surroundings". It is composed of three main (Ljubljanska cesta, Okrajno glavarstvo and Beletov vrt) and two smaller parts (Hiša Vojska and Skabernetov vrt). The chapter on the history of research, including the transcriptions of all important written sources from the time before World War I, is devoted to this cemetery, as well as the chapter on its chronology.
In the catalogue, on the plates and on some of the figures, the finds from the Ljubljanska cesta and Okrajno glavarstvo areas are presented; they are kept in the prehistoric and Roman collections as well as in the Coin Cabinet of the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana.
The studies of fibulae are devoted to the variants of the Nauheim type, appearing on the sites of the Mokronog Group in central and eastern Slovenia, to the Nova vas type fibulae and to the arched fibulae of the Idrija Ia type.
A special chapter is devoted to the relative chronology of the Late La Tène period in the south-eastern Alpine area (the Mokronog Group and Magdalensberg in the Austrian Carinthia) and in northern Italy (Lombardy and the Veneto).
2008, Katalogi in monografije 39, 240 pages, 91 colour and b-w photos, drawings, tables and maps, 33 plates, 24 x 32,8 cm, hardcover, ISBN 978-961-6169-60-8. Price: 45 €

Zusammenfassung:

Die römische Stadt auf dem Magdalensberg, von 1948 bis 2011 alljährlich in systematischen Grabungen untersucht, erbrachte beträchtliche Mengen an Funden, die Aufschlüsse über Nahrung und Ernährungsgewohnheiten geben: Tierknochen, marine und terrestrische Mollusken, botanische Reste, Koch- und Tafelgeschirr oder Amphoren für den Wein- und Lebensmittelimport aus dem gesamten Mittelmeerraum. Viele Graffiti und tituli picti auf Amphoren und Krügen erteilen Auskünfte über Menge oder Gewicht, spezifizieren den Inhalt oder nennen ein genaues Datum. Unter den Baubefunden sind einige Küchenensembles bekannt, die durch Funde an Küchengeräten ergänzt werden. Dieser reiche Quellenbestand gibt wertvolle Einblicke in das vorhandene Nahrungsmittelangebot der Stadt, in ihre Tafelkultur sowie die lokalen Kochgewohnheiten.


Summary:

Excavations in the Roman town on the Magdalensberg, which continued annually from 1948 to 2011, yielded enormous data as regards diet and dietary evidence: animal bones, marine and non-marine molluscs, plant residues, cooking pots and fine tableware; amphorae and jugs give proof of imported wine and foodstuffs from the whole Mediterranean. Furthermore, several graffiti and tituli picti on amphorae and jugs mention the weight or the quantity of their contents, but also a precise date. Besides kitchen-utensils, kitchens and their facilities were recorded as well among the archaeological structures. Therefore, this rich archaeological source permits to gain insight concerning the town’s supplies with foodstuffs, the dining culture or local cooking habits.

Bone, antler, ivory, horn and tooth artefacts from the early Roman (50 BC - AD 50) town "old Virunum" on the Magdalensberg in southern Noricum / Austria. Material culture studies, including typology, chronology, numerous parallels, bone and antler manufacturing, raw materials.

In 1980 Ljudmila Plesničar published a Roman grave, discovered to the south-east of the colony of Emona (modern Ljubljana) along the road leading towards the municipium Neviodunum (modern Drnovo near Krško).
The grave inventory included among other items a marble casket, two iron and four bone objects, explained by the author as an iron chopping-knife, a bone pin, a bone tube, an iron adze and two bone spatulae. The last three can be identified as a fragmented iron wax spatula, a bone strip terminating in a perforated tab, probably a ruler, and a bone knife resembling modern paper knives.
Roman bone or ivory knives, in form very close to iron-bladed pen-knives,
are extremely rare. Apart from the knife from Ljubljana, two others have been found in graves associated with writing and measuring instruments.

Furniture from Antiquity survived only rarely. In the south of Noricum, a number of finds from tombs and settlements derive from furniture with elements in worked bone. On the background of these goods, which belonged to an expensive price range, the analysis tries to answer the question, if there might be any proof for their production in local workshops.

Antikes Mobiliar blieb selten im Original erhalten. Im Süden Noricums stammen einige Funde aus Gräbern und Siedlungen von Möbeln, die mit Beinelementen ausgestattet waren. Anhand dieser Funde soll untersucht werden, inwieweit eine lokale Erzeugung solcher Einrichtungsgegenstände, die der gehobenen Preisklasse angehörten, nachweisbar ist.

From the large cemetery of Dobřichov-Pičhora in Bohemia, which is mostly dated to the early Roman Imperial period, originates a bronze fragment, interpreted by Eduard Droberjar as an upper part of a Roman seal box. It has a vertical cast ear with a small ring in the hole and below the ear the upper part of an oval plate with two horizontally placed holes. It is much more probable that it represents the upper end of a pillar of a bronze lantern of the type I A according to Feugère and Garbsch. The same explanation fits very probably to a small fragment, found in the early Roman workshop at Gornji trg 3 in Ljubljana.
Three lantern burners, two from the settlement on Magdalensberg in Carinthia and one from the Augustan military camp at Haltern in Germany, were falsely interpreted as a special type of early Roman inkwells.
The lantern fragment from Bohemia, the only one in the barbaricum, does not prove the use of Roman lanterns outside of the Roman state, since it has an additional, frontal hole in the vertical ear. It was probably reused as an attachment of a copper-alloy or wooden vessel.

Der Magdalensberg in Österreich als Handels- und Produktionszentrum im frührömischen Noricum von der Mitte des 1. Jh. v. Chr. bis in die Mitte des 1. Jh. n. Chr. wies eine prosperierende Textilwirtschaft auf. Nachgewiesen ist dies durch die zahllosen Spinnwirtel, Webgewichte und Nähnadeln, die sich auf dem gesamten Areal fanden und die in ihrer Anzahl und Zusammensetzung für den norischen Bereich als einzigartig zu bezeichnen sind. Bei den Grabungen am Magdalensberg wurden in den frühen 1970er Jahren im Gebäude OR/23 im Bereich einer Schwelle verschiedene Fragmente von Textilien zutage. Die Textilien vom Magdalensberg zählen unter den römischen Geweben aus Österreich zu jenen, die am besten erhalten sind. Obwohl oberflächlich rein aus einfacher Leinwandbindung bestehend, offenbaren sie bei näherer Betrachtung unter Kenntnis antiker Spinn- und Webtechnik zahlreiche interessante Details, die uns näher an das römische Textilhandwerk heranführen.

Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum houses a multitude of small finds, which once played an important role in the material culture of ancient daily life. From these antiquities, three four-sided bone tablets with inscriptions, old finds from the former imperial collections, are discussed in terms of their origin, date and function.

Unter einer Vielzahl an Kleinfunden aus den verschiedensten Bereichen der antiken Alltagskultur beherbergt die Antikensammlung des Kunsthistorischen Museums in Wien auch drei vierkantige Beinstäbchen, die mit Inschriften versehen sind. Diese drei Antiken, Altfunde aus den ehemals kaiserlichen Sammlungen, werden hinsichtlich ihrer Herkunft, Datierung und Funktion besprochen.