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Tabula Traiana in the rock wall at Mali Kazan, seen from the Danube; the block stands just above the lake

Mali Kazan, the Danube · AD 100 and 1969

Tabula Traiana in the Danube Gorge: what it says and how it was lifted 20 metres in 1969

In AD 100, Trajan left a plaque on the Danube cliff that says in one sentence how he made the road through the gorge. In 1967–1969, when the Iron Gates lake was about to cover the spot, a block of about 260 tonnes, carrying the plaque and a strip of the road, was cut from the mountain and lifted 20 metres. Below: the six words of the sentence, what is left of them in Romanian, and the block, which you can lift yourself.

Photo: Erik Cleves Kristensen, CC BY 2.0

What is Tabula Traiana?
An inscription cut in AD 100 into the cliff of the Danube at Mali Kazan, in which Trajan announces, as the editors read it, the rebuilding of the Roman road through the gorge.
Where is it?
On the Serbian bank of the Danube, in Đerdap National Park, at 44.657° N, 22.310° E. It is best seen from the water; in 2021 a reader's letter in Politika described a new viewpoint above it near Golo Brdo.
What does it say?
Trajan's name and titles, then one sentence: mountains cut, beams raised (or removed, according to some scholars), the road rebuilt.
Why is it no longer where it was put?
The Iron Gates I dam was going to raise the water over it. In 1967–1969 the block with the plaque, about 260 t, was cut from the mountain and lifted about 20 m.
How many of the six words survive in Romanian?
One inherited directly (munte), one whose base verb is inherited (a face), two whose meaning other words express, and two lost.

What the stone says

The titles fix the year. Trajan appears as pontifex maximus, with his fourth tribunician power and his third consulate, which gives AD 100. The title Dacicus is missing, in line with the date: he took it only in 102, after the first Dacian War.

The text is cut on a tabula ansata, a tablet with side “handles”, inside an architectural frame, carried by two winged genii; below it, once, probably a kneeling Danubius (Lupa). The pediment above is later than the original carving, the 1969 report says. The giant letters TABULA TRAIANA were added in 1891, according to Geopark Đerdap.

Where
Mali Kazan (Cazanele Mici), Serbian bank, Đerdap National Park; 44.657° N, 22.310° E (OpenStreetMap, Wikidata)
When
AD 100
Number
CIL III 1699 = CIL III 8267; AE 1973, 474; ILJug 63
Size
the plaque: 175 × 410 cm; the moved block: 7.5 m long
How to see it
best from the Danube, from Orșova, Dubova or Tekija; a viewpoint near Golo Brdo, according to a Politika reader's letter of 2021
Tabula Traiana close up: the Latin text under the giant letters TABULA TRAIANA
The inscription close up.Photo: Ynhockey, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

“The emperor Caesar Nerva Trajan Augustus Germanicus, son of the divine Nerva, chief priest, in his fourth tribunician power, father of the fatherland, consul for the third time, by cutting the mountains and raising the beams, rebuilt the road.”

“Rebuilt” translates the restored verb [r]e[fecit]; English Wikipedia reads fecit, “made”. “Raising” picks one of the three readings of sublatis, given below.

Six words: what is left of them in Romanian

The last sentence of the inscription says in six words what the emperor did to the rock. Each word gets three lines here: what it did on the rock in AD 100, what was done to the same rock in 1969, and what became of it in Romanian.

IMP · CAESAR · DIVI · NERVAE · F

NERVA · TRAIANVS · AVG · GERM

PONTIF · MAXIMVS · TRIB · POT · IIII

PATER · PATRIAE · COS · III

· ·

· ·

The text after Ubi Erat Lupa 15228. Letters in brackets, set paler, are supplied by editors, partly from older copies. According to the portal Biseri Dunava i Đerdapa, the last two lines wore away over time.

Tap a word of the last sentence.

montibus

from the mountains (ablative plural of mons)

Inherited

On the rock, AD 100
The rock itself: the road was cut into the limestone wall on the bank of the Danube.
On the same rock, 1969
The same rock was cut again. A wire saw freed a block from the mountain, carrying the plaque and a strip of the Roman road.
In Romanian
munte, from mons, montem (DEX).

excisis

cut out, hollowed (a participle of the verb excīdere, “to cut out, to hollow”)

Lost

On the rock, AD 100
The verb says what was done to the mountain: it was cut away to make room for the road.
On the same rock, 1969
After the cut, the block was set in a new bed dug into the rock some 20 m higher; the work was planned against the lake's maximum elevation, 69.5 m (1969 report).
In Romanian
The Latin verb was not inherited into Romanian. A tăia, from Late Latin *taliare, expresses its meaning. The root caedere lives on in a ucide “to kill” (from occidere).

Later loan Later loan, from French: excizie, in medicine.

anconibus

cantilever beams (from Greek ankón, “elbow”)

Lost

On the rock, AD 100
Where the wall dropped sheer into the water, timber beams set in sockets in the rock carried the road. Mommsen read it differently: spurs of rock standing in the way. The details are reconstruction.
On the same rock, 1969
Before the lift, the block was tied with prestressed steel ties and propped on reinforced-concrete supports; the lift ran on a metal scaffold.
In Romanian
No inherited descendant in Romanian.

Later loan Later loan, from French and Italian: anconă, “a console supporting the cornice”. Ancoră “anchor” is unrelated.

sublatis

raised or removed (tollere has both senses)

Meaning carried by another word

On the rock, AD 100
Scholars disagree. Benndorf: the beams were raised, set in place. Mommsen: spurs of rock were removed. Swoboda: Trajan took out the beams of an older road.
On the same rock, 1969
The block was raised about 20 m on the scaffold, with hydraulic jacks, about 1 cm a minute.
In Romanian
A ridica covers both senses, “to raise” and “to remove”. Its origin is disputed: DEX derives it from eradicare, DER finds it unconvincing and proposes ridicare, “to tie the vine”.

viam

the road (accusative of via)

Meaning carried by another word

On the rock, AD 100
The military road through the gorge, worked on for a long time: Tiberius, then Domitian, then Trajan.
On the same rock, 1969
The strip of Roman road under the plaque moved with it. Total length of the block: 7.5 m.
In Romanian
Via did not survive as the word for a road. Cale, from callis (“path, beaten track”), and drum, from Slavic drumŭ, ultimately Greek dromos, took its place.

Later loan Later loan: via in “via Paris”.

refecit

rebuilt (restored letters: [r]e[fecit])

Base verb inherited

On the rock, AD 100
If the editors' reading is right, the road was not new: Trajan rebuilt it. English Wikipedia reads fecit, “made”.
On the same rock, 1969
In 1969 the plaque was moved out of place. Before the lift, a negative mould of the plaque was taken in synthetic rubber; the block was set in the new bed.
In Romanian
A face comes from facere. A reface was formed later, after French refaire. The perfect fecit left traces in Old Romanian (fece, feace); in the standard language făcu replaced it.
  • montibusInherited
  • excisisLost
  • anconibusLost
  • sublatisMeaning carried by another word
  • viamMeaning carried by another word
  • refecitBase verb inherited

One word inherited directly (munte), one whose base verb is inherited (a face), two whose meaning other words express (sublatis, viam) and two lost (excisis, anconibus). Three of the four that did not survive have learned counterparts in Romanian, borrowed later, mostly through French: excizie, anconă, via.

How the plaque was lifted 20 metres

The Iron Gates I dam was about to raise the Danube over the plaque's place. The report the conservator Dobroslav St. Pavlović wrote in 1969, as the investor's representative on site, describes two solutions; a commission of specialists chose the second: cutting the rock with the plaque and part of the Roman road out of the mountain and setting it some twenty metres higher, “so that its relation to the new surface of the river would stay the same as before”.

The alternative was a funnel-shaped concrete wall keeping the water out: the monument stayed where it was, but “in a pit some twenty metres” below the new level of the Danube, reached by going down to it. Below you can lift the block yourself, with or without the lake: at the 1969 rate the lifting itself comes to 2,000 minutes, 33 hours and 20 minutes of jacking.

The three sentences from the report, in Serbian

…стена са таблом, па и делом пута, исекла би се из масе, пренела и уградила у обалу, за двадесетак метара више, чиме би пак њен однос према новој површини реке остао исти као и раније…

…посебном бетонском браном левкастог облика, у коју би се могло силазити. На тај начин, споменик би остао на свом аутентичном месту, а у односу на нови ниво Дунава био би у рупи за око двадесет метара испод.

…Кота 69,5 м, према којој је измештен део римског пута са таблом, максимална је висина до које ће Ђердапско језеро запљускивати своје обале.

Pavlović 1969, pp. 58 and 60; spelling normalised (in the published file some Cyrillic letters appear as Latin ones).

7,5 mabout 260 t1,75 m+5+10+15+20lake maximum: 69.5 mwater before the damconcrete wall≈ 20 m
Lifted
0 m
Lifting time, at 1 cm a minute
0 h 0 min
Working days, at 1 m a day
0
The lake
lake: the old level

The starting point. The block with the plaque and its strip of road, 7.5 m long, weighs about 260 t (300 t with its supporting structure). Drag the block or the slider, or press the lift button.

The wall seen from the water. The block (7.5 m), the person (1.75 m) and the lift (20 m) are to scale and use the 1969 report's figures. The water is schematic: the block's height above it is not in the sources. The lake's 20 m is the planners' figure for this spot.

What the crew did

  • A negative mould of the plaque in synthetic rubber, taken before the lift.
  • Prestressed steel ties and reinforced-concrete supports, so the block would not come apart.
  • A wire saw, to free the block from the mountain.
  • A special metal scaffold and hydraulic jacks, for the lift.
  • A new bed cut in the rock some 20 m higher, where the block was set.

The figures, with their source

Liftabout 20 m (1969 report); 21.5 m as a participant recalled in 2016
Mass of the blockabout 260 t; about 300 t with the structure (1969 report)
Length of the block7.5 m, with the plaque, its frame and the strip of road beneath
Speedabout 1 cm a minute; at most 2.8 m in a day, 1 m on average
Durationwork began on 1 September 1967; the Venčac team finished its cutting in mid-May 1969 and handed over to Mostogradnja; the lift, with its preparations, took about a month and a half in autumn 1969 (report)
Lake levelelevation 69.5 m, the highest the lake reaches its banks
WhoMostogradnja of Belgrade, with the Aranđelovac mines and the “Venčac” marble and granite industry
Height of the plaque above the waternot given in the sources found

1904 and today

The 1904 photograph shows the plaque in its Roman place, on a wall where the giant letters TABULA TRAIANA, added in 1891 according to Geopark Đerdap, are already visible. Today's photograph shows the block lifted 20 metres.

Tabula Traiana in 1904, in its original place above the Danube
1904: the plaque in its place.FOTO:FORTEPAN / Magyar Földrajzi Múzeum / Erdélyi Mór cége, ID 86997, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Tabula Traiana close up today, with the giant letters above the Latin text
Today: the lifted block.Photo: Ynhockey, CC BY-SA 4.0

The two photographs do not share a frame. The first is wider, the second shows the inscription close up.

The road, from Tiberius to the dam

  1. 33–34Under Tiberius work is done on the road in the gorge (inscription CIL III 1698).
  2. the 90sUnder Domitian work is done on the road.
  3. 100Trajan works on the road (rebuilds it, as the editors read it); the inscription is cut into the rock.
  4. 103–105Apollodorus of Damascus builds the bridge at Drobeta, on 20 piers. Walk the bridge in 3D.
  5. 1891The giant letters TABULA TRAIANA are added above, according to Geopark Đerdap.
  6. 1904The Fortepan photograph shows the plaque in its place.
  7. 1964Work on the Iron Gates I dam begins on 7 September.
  8. 1967–1969Work begins on 1 September 1967; the block is cut from the mountain and lifted about 20 m, the lift itself in autumn 1969.
  9. 1970–1972The first generating units start on 6 August 1970; the dam is inaugurated on 16 May 1972.

More on this site

Sources and method

The lift figures come from the report the conservator Dobroslav Pavlović wrote in 1969, published by the Serbian heritage institute: a lift of about 20 m, a mass of about 260 t (300 t with the structure), a length of 7.5 m, about 1 cm a minute, at most 2.8 m in a day, 1 m on average. The participant Dragomir Pavlović recalled 21.5 m and over 300 t to Politika in 2016; other sources give between 14 and 22 m and do not cite the report.

The diagram in “The lift” draws the block (7.5 m), the person (1.75 m) and the lift (20 m) to scale. The block's height above the water, the old river level at this spot and the date the lake reached 69.5 m are not in the sources found, so the water is drawn schematically. The lake's 20 m is the 1969 planners' figure for this spot.

Letters in square brackets in the text are restorations by editors (Ubi Erat Lupa). The reading refecit is a restoration; English Wikipedia gives fecit. There are three readings of sublatis, given at that word.

No freely licensed photograph of the 1967–1969 move was found.