Date noi si mai vechi in legătură cu fortificația romană de la Mehadia (jud. Caraș-Severin) / New and older data about the Roman fortification from Mehadia (Caraș-Severin County)

Abstract

e Roman camp from Mehadia has been systematically researched in several moments over the last hundred years. However, the internal plan of the fortification could not be established precisely due to the many late interventions that the Romans undertook in the area, but also as a result of serious floods caused by overflow of the Bolvaşniţa River and Belareca River, fast mountain waters which affected the integrity of the site. Doina Benea, who established the last chronology of the fortification at Mehadia, considers that the last users of the camp perimeter were the limitanei (peasant soldiers) from the Constantinian period of the Roman Army, conclusions based on some discoveries in the area of the gates that indicated architectural changes of the towers and entrance. However, the 18th-century Habsburg cartographic sources give us indications that during the Austro-Turkish confrontations this castellum with visible vallum system and defense ditch was used, leaving even material traces that archaeologists did not recognize or that did not take them into account.