Archaeology · the Gumelnița culture on the Lower Danube

Archaeology in Romania: what 406 dates reveal about Gumelnița

A set of 406 radiocarbon dates becomes a probability curve. Change the 10-year bin and site to see what the curve measures about the past.

406 dates · 59 sites · 131 ten-year bins

All archaeology projects ↓

IntCal20 · Lower Danube

Where does the curve rise?

Paper estimate4,394 BCEHighest plotted bin: 4,390 BCE

Both lines show percentages of their own peak. Blue is the all-site series; rust is the selected site. Axis labels identify the dataset’s 10-year bins, not exact event dates.

All sitesPietrele

Choose a 10-year bin 4,390 BCE · 10-year bin Choose a site

Relative probability · all sites100%

Pietrele63%58 dates associated with this site

Open the table of 131 bins

Relative index against each series’ own maximum
10-year bin	All sites	Pietrele
5,050 BCE	0%	0%
5,040 BCE	1%	0%
5,030 BCE	1%	0%
5,020 BCE	1%	0%
5,010 BCE	1%	0%
5,000 BCE	2%	0%
4,990 BCE	2%	0%
4,980 BCE	2%	0%
4,970 BCE	3%	0%
4,960 BCE	3%	0%
4,950 BCE	4%	0%
4,940 BCE	4%	0%
4,930 BCE	5%	0%
4,920 BCE	6%	0%
4,910 BCE	7%	0%
4,900 BCE	8%	0%
4,890 BCE	9%	0%
4,880 BCE	9%	0%
4,870 BCE	10%	0%
4,860 BCE	11%	0%
4,850 BCE	12%	0%
4,840 BCE	13%	0%
4,830 BCE	15%	0%
4,820 BCE	16%	0%
4,810 BCE	17%	0%
4,800 BCE	18%	0%
4,790 BCE	18%	0%
4,780 BCE	19%	0%
4,770 BCE	20%	0%
4,760 BCE	20%	0%
4,750 BCE	20%	0%
4,740 BCE	20%	0%
4,730 BCE	21%	0%
4,720 BCE	22%	0%
4,710 BCE	23%	1%
4,700 BCE	25%	1%
4,690 BCE	27%	1%
4,680 BCE	29%	3%
4,670 BCE	31%	5%
4,660 BCE	32%	5%
4,650 BCE	33%	6%
4,640 BCE	32%	6%
4,630 BCE	33%	4%
4,620 BCE	36%	4%
4,610 BCE	38%	7%
4,600 BCE	42%	13%
4,590 BCE	46%	13%
4,580 BCE	47%	16%
4,570 BCE	49%	15%
4,560 BCE	54%	12%
4,550 BCE	60%	16%
4,540 BCE	66%	34%
4,530 BCE	73%	46%
4,520 BCE	80%	44%
4,510 BCE	84%	41%
4,500 BCE	87%	46%
4,490 BCE	90%	56%
4,480 BCE	92%	58%
4,470 BCE	96%	55%
4,460 BCE	97%	55%
4,450 BCE	96%	57%
4,440 BCE	97%	64%
4,430 BCE	99%	77%
4,420 BCE	98%	62%
4,410 BCE	99%	57%
4,400 BCE	100%	60%
4,390 BCE	100%	63%
4,380 BCE	98%	60%
4,370 BCE	94%	61%
4,360 BCE	89%	78%
4,350 BCE	83%	99%
4,340 BCE	75%	89%
4,330 BCE	68%	61%
4,320 BCE	62%	34%
4,310 BCE	60%	21%
4,300 BCE	60%	23%
4,290 BCE	61%	39%
4,280 BCE	62%	56%
4,270 BCE	62%	54%
4,260 BCE	59%	39%
4,250 BCE	51%	23%
4,240 BCE	43%	14%
4,230 BCE	34%	9%
4,220 BCE	29%	7%
4,210 BCE	27%	6%
4,200 BCE	29%	7%
4,190 BCE	30%	10%
4,180 BCE	31%	14%
4,170 BCE	29%	10%
4,160 BCE	26%	6%
4,150 BCE	23%	4%
4,140 BCE	22%	5%
4,130 BCE	22%	7%
4,120 BCE	24%	8%
4,110 BCE	26%	7%
4,100 BCE	27%	7%
4,090 BCE	27%	9%
4,080 BCE	27%	9%
4,070 BCE	26%	8%
4,060 BCE	22%	7%
4,050 BCE	17%	4%
4,040 BCE	13%	1%
4,030 BCE	11%	0%
4,020 BCE	9%	0%
4,010 BCE	9%	1%
4,000 BCE	9%	1%
3,990 BCE	8%	0%
3,980 BCE	7%	0%
3,970 BCE	6%	0%
3,960 BCE	5%	0%
3,950 BCE	4%	0%
3,940 BCE	3%	0%
3,930 BCE	2%	0%
3,920 BCE	2%	0%
3,910 BCE	1%	0%
3,900 BCE	1%	0%
3,890 BCE	1%	0%
3,880 BCE	2%	0%
3,870 BCE	2%	0%
3,860 BCE	2%	0%
3,850 BCE	2%	0%
3,840 BCE	3%	0%
3,830 BCE	3%	0%
3,820 BCE	2%	0%
3,810 BCE	2%	0%
3,800 BCE	2%	0%
3,790 BCE	1%	0%
3,780 BCE	1%	0%
3,770 BCE	0%	0%
3,760 BCE	0%	0%
3,750 BCE	0%	0%

The supplementary file used here contains 406 dates, 59 sites and 131 bins; the paper also discusses a broader inventory. Calibrated probabilities are summed, normalized and smoothed over 50 years. The paper estimates its peak at 4394 BCE; the highest bin in the file is labelled 4390 BCE. The curve describes the distribution of selected dates, not the number of people or houses.

Anthropomorphic clay figurine with an elongated form and raised arms — **The Vidra figurine** · an object from the Gumelnița culture, photographed at the Bucharest Municipality Museum. One object cannot establish a ritual or meaning by itself. Neoclassicism Enthusiast / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0. Image resized for this page.

01 / Beyond the curve

Dates are ranges, not exact days

The series traces changes over several centuries. Each radiocarbon measurement is calibrated as a probability; several years may be plausible for one date. The curve adds those probabilities. A peak does not mean that the most houses were built in one year.

The Hills Made of Houses: more than a thousand years of Gumelnița, from 406 radiocarbon dates A 6,500-year-old village is falling into a lake, piece by piece Sărata-Monteoru and the Monteoru culture: eight Bronze Age phases, read on the plan Browse the collection ↓

02 / Beyond the curve

What remains in the ground

A chronology curve needs sites and objects to make sense. Gumelnița settlements rose into tells as people built on earlier homes. Pottery, burnt houses, food remains and graves preserve different evidence; one figurine cannot tell us what its maker believed.

He has been thinking for 7,000 years. We still don't know what about. Fishers and farmers at the Iron Gates: who grew up elsewhere? Cucuteni–Trypillia: Two Millennia Under One Name Browse the collection ↓

03 / Beyond the curve

One era, different clocks

Archaeologists can date a layer, an object or organic material found beside it. A date assigned through pottery is not the same as a radiocarbon measurement. The projects below keep their methods and uncertainties separate, so you can see what supports each date.

The Bronze Age collapse, place by place: 153 claimed destructions of about 1200 BCE, each with the clock that dated it Vikings were felling trees in America in 1021. How can anyone know the exact year? Where people lived when ice covered Europe Browse the collection ↓

04 / Beyond the curve

Traces in the ground and in archives

From Romania to other landscapes, the collection follows ruins, roads, fortifications, objects, inscriptions and restorations. Start with a map of nearby discoveries, or choose a site and see what remains, what was moved and what was lost.

Discoveries near you — Beneath your feet UNESCO counted 277 points along Rome's Dacian frontier. Only a few can be visited, with a ticket. Romania has 11 UNESCO sites. The map shows 323 places. Browse the collection ↓

Follow the evidence

Choose a discovery or place

The collection ranges from prehistoric settlements to inscriptions, fortresses, maps and restorations. Each project carries its sources and evidence type.

The Hills Made of Houses: more than a thousand years of Gumelnița, from 406 radiocarbon dates A 6,500-year-old village is falling into a lake, piece by piece Oase 1: a Neanderthal ancestor 4–6 generations back Money under the ground: Roman coin finds in Romania Discoveries near you — Beneath your feet Romania has 11 UNESCO sites. The map shows 323 places. Browse the collection ↓

Archaeology · 68 projects

The complete collection

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68 projects

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Monuments and restoration
Dobrovăț Monastery: how old are the church, wall and tower?
The church of 1503–1504, the 17th-century wall and the tower raised in 1743: three ages in a single courtyard, then a relief model showing what could be seen from the roads around. In Romanian and English.
Prehistory and settlements
Sărata-Monteoru and the Monteoru culture: eight Bronze Age phases, read on the plan
A village in Buzău gave its name to a Bronze Age culture. Eight phases read on the profile of Cetățuia hill, a cemetery of 146 graves and a map of the sites. In Romanian and English.
Objects and landscapes
Old Orșova under the Cerna Gulf: 24 metres of water, 5 to 6 metres of mud
Orșova, a town in southwestern Romania, stood at the Cerna’s mouth. A 2017 survey measured the Cerna Gulf to 24 metres deep; a study reports 5 to 6 metres of sediment over the old town site. These are different measurements. In Romanian and English.
Monuments and restoration
Abu Simbel: the temples that moved
In the 1960s, two temples carved into a cliff were cut apart and rebuilt above the rising waters of Lake Nasser. The hill behind them was built too. In Romanian and English.
Prehistory and settlements
Fishers and farmers at the Iron Gates: who grew up elsewhere?
As farming began, teeth indicate more people raised in a different geological area. Nine sites on the gorge’s relief map, with sample phases, DNA, diet and precise sources.
Rome and Dacia
Popești, Giurgiu: was Burebista’s capital here?
An inscription from Balchik names Argedava, and the dig at Popești uncovered a Getic fortress. One sheet sets them face to face, with the rival candidacy, Vărădia; the verdict is the reader’s. In Romanian and English.
Rome and Dacia
Noviodunum and Dinogetia: what could sentries have seen?
Two Roman forts 30.1 km apart on the Danube. Choose a point on the wall and see what the visibility model indicates over today’s terrain; the assumptions are written on the page. In Romanian and English.
Monuments and restoration
Neamț Monastery: what did the monks copy — ten dated books in 143 years?
Ten dated copies made at Neamț between 1436 and 1579, then Paisie’s school: what was copied and when, each book with its year and its proof.
Rome and Dacia
Your Town and the Limes
Around the year 210, a line stitched from forts, towers and a timber palisade cut present-day Romania in two. Type your town below and find which side you were on — inside, outside, or right on the frontier.
Monuments and restoration
Enisala Fortress: what the sentries saw from the walls, above the Razim lagoon
The walls rise some 99 metres above the lagoon, in Romania's Dobrogea. From them, the watch saw the lagoon water for 25 kilometres and, south-eastward, the open sea past the spit — though the fortress never stood on the seashore.
Prehistory and settlements
The Bronze Age collapse, place by place: 153 claimed destructions of about 1200 BCE, each with the clock that dated it
153 destructions are said to have happened at the end of the Bronze Age. Jesse Millek (2023) went back to the excavation reports and keeps 59. A relief map of the eastern Mediterranean shows all of them on a clock from 1300 to 1050 BCE and what dated each: pottery, a text, tree rings or radiocarbon. Only seven have a radiocarbon range for the destruction itself, 84 to 245 years wide; the page shows what they can and cannot say.
Monuments and restoration
Oradea Fortress: the walled star that spent 32 years as a pashalik capital
Five bastions on a 1,614-metre circuit, raised between 1570 and 1660 from a plan whose author appears in no document; 44 days of siege in the summer of 1660; then 32 years as the seat of the Pashalik of Varat, an Ottoman province. The star at true scale, over any town — then the building, stone by stone.
Rome and Dacia
Constantine the Great's bridge at Sucidava: 2,437 metres across the Danube, from AD 328
Choose a pace and walk its whole length — 2,437 metres, a mile and a half — on a to-scale drawing, while Trajan's bridge, drawn underneath, ends at less than half.
Prehistory and settlements
Europe’s three ancestral peoples: who they were, when they came, how much of each remains
Hunter-gatherers who were here after the Ice Age. Farmers who arrived from Anatolia about 8,500 years ago. Herders who came off the steppe about 5,000 years ago. Most people with European ancestors descend from all three. Each has its own colour on this map, shown where and when a skeleton’s DNA has been read: 12,346 people so far. With a lookup for your own father line or mother line.
Rome and Dacia
Could the Dacian fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains see each other? Computed on the real relief
Of 15 pairs, one: Costești-Cetățuie and Blidaru, neighbours 1.6 km apart. In the other 14 the mountain rises at least 100 m above the straight line. From the capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia, none of the other five fortresses can be seen, even from a 12 m tower. A chain of posts in between remains possible; the positions known do not show one.
Rome and Dacia
Do all roads lead to Rome? The proverb, tested on 299,171 km of Roman roads
On Itiner-e, the 2025 map of Roman roads, 57% of the length can be walked to Rome, 37% hangs on two short ferries and 5.9% is on islands. But the same 94% lead to Byzantium too: roads run both ways, and the average kilometre of road is nearer to Byzantium (2,395 km) than to Rome (2,781 km). The distances the Romans wrote on the Peutinger map are compared with the measured roads, and for any town between Scotland and the Nile the map shows its road to Rome.
Prehistory and settlements
Where people lived when ice covered Europe
Each light is a Stone Age archaeological site with a radiocarbon date from that time. The ice, the coasts and the lights change as you scroll, from 27,000 years ago to 8,000. Search for your town to see what stood there 21,000 years ago.
Prehistory and settlements
Doggerland map: the land under the North Sea, drowned between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago
Doggerland joined Britain to Denmark and the Netherlands until the sea drowned it. A relief map of today’s sea floor, with 1,873 river channels, lakes and other features mapped beneath it, and the computed shore of any moment since 16,000 years ago. For each North Sea town, it shows how far away the shore was 10,500 years ago.
Monuments and restoration
Notre-Dame de Paris: fire, restoration and contested windows
15 April 2019, 18:20: three distinct alarms, the spire down around 19:50, out by 09:50. Then the oaks, the organ's 115 stops, the December 2024 reopening and the 2026 dispute over six intact 1864 windows. In Romanian, English and French.
Monuments and restoration
Rotterdam after the bombing: a city between ruins and a new plan
14 May 1940: 713 named civilian victims, plus 32 separately suspected cases, and the fire line drawn in the street. Then the Lijnbaan, the first car-free shopping centre in the Netherlands, and the reconstruction plan that redrew the centre. In Romanian and English.
Monuments and restoration
Chicago after the 1871 fire: from ruins to the 1893 fair
Three days of fire from the O'Leary barn: about 200 dead, 17,000 buildings, 100,000 homeless. Then the 1872 ordinance, the Palmer House, the first skyscraper and the 1893 fair. In Romanian and English.
Monuments and restoration
Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake: uneven damage, plans and urban memory
The earthquake, tsunami and fire affected Lisbon in different ways. Five stops follow what local studies show, what rebuilding plans proposed — from Baixa's adapted grid to the Carmo memorial ruins — and how the rebuilt city changed.
Monuments and restoration
Dresden's Frauenkirche: the church, the ruin and a contested rebuilding
Dresden's Frauenkirche became a ruin, a memorial and then a rebuilt church. The chronology of its dated images and decisions — from the morning of 15 February 1945 to the reused stone of 1994 — shows how the meaning of the site changed.
Monuments and restoration
Warsaw’s Old Town: from Canaletto’s view to the past the city chose
The student drawings smuggled out before the fire, the 1945 damage maps, Canaletto’s views and the choice of which period to return to: how Warsaw’s Old Town was rebuilt, told by scrolling through each era’s records.
Monuments and restoration
The palace that came back: one plot, three buildings
A demolished Prussian palace, a GDR palace built and demolished, and Baroque façades returning around a new museum. Five documented moments — c. 1900, 1950, 1976, 2006–08, 2020–21 — trace the buildings on one Berlin plot, with a context plan, the Persius drawing and conflict panels where sources disagree.
Monuments and restoration
Beijing's walls, along the metro route
Beijing's Line 2 follows the former inner-city enclosure corridor, and several stations carry the old gates' names. Ride all 18 stops — 8 inner-gate names, 3 later openings, 7 without a counterpart — then compare Liang Sicheng's unbuilt wall-top park with the 1952–1970 demolitions and count what remains: 2 gate sites, 3 towers, wall fragments.
Monuments and restoration
Izmail Fortress: what remains beside the Danube
At Izmail on the Danube, military plans show an old fortress, a new one and a river front. Suvorov's assault of 11/22 December 1790 did not end the site's history: the defences were rebuilt, then dismantled after the 1856 peace. Set the plans beside today's traces: the mosque with its diorama and the park-museum.
Monuments and restoration
Văcărești Monastery, on the same map
A princely foundation becomes a prison, then a demolition site: the great church falls in December 1986, the last remains in January 1987. What stays is the abandoned basin and the wetland now protected as a nature park. Slide the monastery plan over the map through 1723/24, 1865, 1984, 1989 and 2016.
Prehistory and settlements
The oldest dated hand: an outline on a cave wall, at least 67,800 years old
Blow pigment across a wall and lay your palm over the 14 by 10 centimetre patch left by a hand stencil on Muna island, Indonesia, at least 67,800 years old. See how a cave painting is dated, what is known about who made these hands and why so many hands at Gargas lack fingers.
Monuments and restoration
The town under the hill
112 metres under the hill at Turda floats a lake with boats, beneath a 90-metre salt bell cut between 1690 and 1880. Descend chamber by chamber — the 917-metre gallery, the Staircase of the Rich, the 1881 horse-whim, the echo chamber — in a schematic 3D cross-section, and learn why the 1075 document is a toll, not a mine.
Monuments and restoration
Why are Wallachia's oldest monasteries where they are?
Drop three marks on the relief, then the charters place the monasteries attested by 1500, in documentary order. Test five explanations one by one: the passes, the Danube, the prince, Nicodim's network, the forest. In Romanian and English.
Prehistory and settlements
There is an Iron Age fort under this wood
A wooded hill in Powys hides an Iron Age hillfort. Slide from the tree tops to the laser-measured ground: the rampart, ditch, gateway and hollows found in two surveys.
Prehistory and settlements
The Hills Made of Houses: more than a thousand years of Gumelnița, from 406 radiocarbon dates
Between 4900 and 3800 BC on the Lower Danube, people built their houses one on top of another until their villages became mounds. A clock drawn from 406 radiocarbon dates, the gold of Varna, four people raised elsewhere and what has actually been found under Bucharest, in Romanian and English.
Prehistory and settlements
Oase 1: a Neanderthal ancestor 4–6 generations back
The remains of a man from about 40,000 years ago, found near Anina: 6–9% Neanderthal DNA from an ancestor 4–6 generations back. The Oase 1 genome, published in 2015.
Prehistory and settlements
Vikings were felling trees in America in 1021. How can anyone know the exact year?
The Greenlanders' saga and Erik the Red's saga tell the same story, contradict each other, and give no year. A dig at the northern tip of Newfoundland shows that Norse people camped there, but does not tell us what they called it. A measurement published in 2021, on three worked pieces of wood from that camp, gives the year: the trees were cut in 1021.
Monuments and restoration
Romania has 11 UNESCO sites. The map shows 323 places.
A map of Romania's UNESCO World Heritage brings together all 11 sites and their 323 places, with inscription year, criteria, area and conservation status.
Rome and Dacia
Six UNESCO Dacian fortresses, one ticket office. The other five you reach on foot.
A map of the six Dacian fortresses in the Orăștie Mountains shows road and walking access, elevation gain, time needed, opening hours, tickets and each site's condition.
Monuments and restoration
Everyone goes to Viscri and Biertan. There are 160 more fortified churches, and at most of them you phone for the key.
A map of Transylvania's 162 fortified churches includes the seven UNESCO villages, heritage class, published opening hours, keyholder contact and damaged buildings.
Rome and Dacia
UNESCO counted 277 points along Rome's Dacian frontier. Only a few can be visited, with a ticket.
A map of Roman archaeological sites open to the public in Romania, including Porolissum, Drobeta and Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, with opening hours, tickets and sources.
Monuments and restoration
Wooden churches belong to the hills
The Carpathians are usually treated as the border between two building worlds. Wooden churches ignore it: their density rises the same way on both flanks and falls where the hills end.
Monuments and restoration
Romania's oldest monasteries are not where you would look for them
Seven of the eight monastic sites older than the year 1200 are in the Banat, Crișana and Transylvania. The eighth is in Dobruja. In Moldavia and Wallachia there is not one.
Prehistory and settlements
The oldest ruins in Romania
The oldest ruins in the country are neither Dacian nor Roman: they are Neolithic and Bronze Age fortified settlements. And the most heavily re-settled place in the list is a hill in Buzău county, with five villages and five cemeteries stacked on it.
Monuments and restoration
Hadrian's Wall, mile by mile: what survives and where to stop
An end-to-end guide to Hadrian's Wall with its measured elevation profile, forts, milecastles, turrets and car-free connections, together with the limits of the available data.
Monuments and restoration
Painted Monasteries of Bucovina: 1–2 Day Route, Measured Distances
Voronet, Humor, Moldovita, Sucevita, Arbore: what to see at each, published hours, service times to avoid, and the optimal route with measured driving distances from Gura Humorului or Suceava.
Prehistory and settlements
Discoveries near you — Beneath your feet
Choose a Romanian town or village to find archaeological discoveries recorded within 1, 5 and 10 km of its reference point. Explore their periods and open the evidence in Romania’s National Archaeological Record.
Rome and Dacia
Who were the Greeks who lived in Romania for a thousand years? c. 630 BC – 1914
Miletus, the silver drachma, the AD 100 boundary. Four chapters and a map that silts as you read.
Rome and Dacia
Sarmizegetusa Regia: sunrise from the Dacian sanctuaries and the “Dacian calendar”, tested on the real terrain
From the centre of the andesite sun, the Sun rises 42–56 minutes after the flat-horizon time and well to the south: the mountain holds the light back. Enter your birthday and see whether any “sacred” line catches it.
Rome and Dacia
Tabula Traiana in the Danube Gorge: what it says and how it was lifted 20 metres in 1969
Trajan's inscription of AD 100, word by word, and the 260-tonne block lifted 20 metres in 1969 before the Iron Gates lake.
Rome and Dacia
The only Roman map of Banat strings eleven stations in a row. Not one still goes by its name.
The Tabula Peutingeriana, the 1265 copy of the Empire's road map, preserves the only ancient road network of Dacia. Eleven names from the Danube to Sarmizegetusa, taken one by one: none survived untouched.
Rome and Dacia
The legion's stamp from Apulum: three marks in clay, one word that came straight into Romanian
A fragment of Roman ceramic in the Alba Iulia museum carries the stamp LEG XIII GEM. Of its three marks only one reached Romanian by the direct road; the map follows the legion from the Rubicon to Apulum.
Rome and Dacia
Tricule Fortress at Svinița, Romania: ice cut the third tower down in 1924, the Iron Gates lake only covered what was left
Tricule Fortress at Svinița, Romania: three medieval towers in the Danube, one cut down by ice in 1924 from about 12 metres to 3, then covered by the Iron Gates lake. Map, true-scale plan and a profile of tower 3.
Rome and Dacia
I, Zenovius, set up this gift
The Biertan donarium: a 4th-century bronze tablet found in 1775 near Biertan, Romania, inscribed EGO ZENOVIVS VOTVM POSVI. Four Latin words, two of which still live in Romanian.
Prehistory and settlements
He has been thinking for 7,000 years. We still don't know what about.
The Thinker of Hamangia and the Sitting Woman: two fired-clay figurines, seven millennia old, found in a grave at Cernavodă. What we know, what we guess, and what we will never know about them.
Monuments and restoration
The chalk-cut churches of Basarabi–Murfatlar, in 3D
The Basarabi–Murfatlar cave complex in Romania, in its 3D laser scan: slice the chalk block level by level and find three churches carved one beneath another a thousand years ago, their walls full of runes nobody has deciphered.
Rome and Dacia
6 February AD 131: what we can still read after 1,895 years
Five surviving lines, a Roman date and the name Alburnus Maior: what the wax tablet written on 6 February 131 really tells us.
Prehistory and settlements
Cucuteni–Trypillia: Two Millennia Under One Name
How settlements, houses, food, pottery and rituals changed between c. 5050 and 2950 BCE.
Prehistory and settlements
Salt Trails
An edible rock set humans in motion.
Prehistory and settlements
A 6,500-year-old village is falling into a lake, piece by piece
Before it collapsed, a Copper Age village mound was at least 130 metres long; in 2019 it was under 34. On the laser-measured ground: what survives, what was dug, what the lake has taken.
Monuments and restoration
The fortress with seven corners
From a plane, Alba Iulia is a seven-pointed star: 7 named bastions, 6 gates, 12 kilometres of walls over the Roman camp and the medieval fortress. Build the star bastion by bastion, in schematic 3D, and learn why the straight wall died, who counted 20,000 labourers with no ledger, and why Gate VII is no gate.
Monuments and restoration
The castle with three lives
On the rock between Măgura and Dealul Cetății, Bran was walled after the privilege of 19 November 1377, became Queen Marie’s favourite home on 1 December 1920, and wears the Dracula castle label — though Vlad the Impaler never held it. Build the fortress phase by phase, in schematic 3D, then peel the myth off the walls.
Monuments and restoration
Where was Vlad, really?
Bran said: not here. At the end of 1,480 concrete steps, on Mount Cetățuia at 850 metres, stands the fortress tradition and archaeology attribute to Vlad the Impaler: a 14th-century tower, a 15th-century building. Climb the steps in 3D, then grade the legends.
Monuments and restoration
The castle that painted its legend
Bran said: not here. Poenari said: up, on the steps. Hunedoara says it differently: here the legends live inside the court — the raven with the ring, the fountain with the curse, the cellar with the prisoner. The 1409 gift, Iancu's building after 1440, the 1854 blaze: raise it tower by tower, in 3D, then grade the legends.
Monuments and restoration
The wall that judges
Argeș said: stone and verse. Hunedoara said: stone and story. Voroneț says it differently: the stone tells its days — 26 May, 14 September 1488 — and the wall shows the end: the 1547 Judgment, with zodiac and peoples. Climb it register by register, in 3D, then grade the legends: Daniil, the lost secret, the airplane.
Monuments and restoration
The castle that lit up
Bran said: fortress stone. Hunedoara said: stone and story. Peleș says it differently: the stone tells its architects — Doderer refused, Schultz, Liman — and the light tells its years: 1884 the network, 1897 the station. Climb it phase by phase, in 3D, then grade the legends: the first in Europe, the fungus, Ceaușescu's night, the film interiors.
Monuments and restoration
The shell on the cliff
Bran said: fortress stone. Peles said: stone and light. The Casino says it differently: the stone tells its architects — three sets of drawings, Renard–Antonescu–Renard — and the walls tell their people: a note from 31 December 1951, found in 2020. Climb it storm by storm, in 3D, then grade the legends: Antonescu, Mincu, "the first", the ghosts.
Rome and Dacia
Trajan's Trophy
The Bridge said: Apollodorus across the Danube. The Column said: the wars in a spiral. The Trophy says it differently: the stone tells its years — 109 in the dedication, 1977 in the frame — and the walls tell their people: some 3,800 names on an after-the-battle altar. Climb it stone by stone, in 3D, then grade the legends: Apollodorus, Dio, the commander, the concrete.
Rome and Dacia
Two Sarmizegetusas
The Sarmizegetusa in the mountains is Dacian. But 40 km west, in the plain, the Romans walled a new city — and gave it the same name. The one in the plain is called Rome: the 108–110 founding, the marble forum, the arena turned fortress with tombstone-blocked gates — in 3D, legends graded.
Rome and Dacia
Money under the ground: Roman coin finds in Romania
583 Oxford records on one map: hoards, possible hoards and individual coins. The chronology dates the latest coin; each point keeps its ratings and bibliography, while conflicting dates remain visible.

About the collection

This collection brings together relevant projects from the site’s library. Each entry has a title, a description and a link to its available edition. The complete projects carry their sources and evidence limits.

Reviewed 2026-10-16 · Collection as text

Sources

Popescu et al., “The Rise and Fall of the Gumelnița–Kodžadermen–Karanovo VI Culture”, Radiocarbon (2023)
The paper presents the radiocarbon series and archaeological interpretation. The chart uses its supplementary file and published method, with limits stated beside the instrument.
Zenodo · supplementary radiocarbon dataset, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.5701137
The data used for 406 dates and 59 sites.
Registrul Arheologic Național · Gumelnița, cod 100629.01
The site record and research history.