History - Page 3
THE STONE AGE – The first signs of habitation on Măgura Moigradului, belong to the Neolithic period, and the discoveries are datable back to 4800-4500 B.C. Several dwellings and a food shelter was assigned to this period.
THE BRONZE AGE and THE FIRST IRON AGE – Even from the second half of the 19th century there are numerous notes that refer to the discovery of prehistorically objects in the area of Porolissum – Moigrad.
The private collections of antiquities, as well as the one of Wesselényi family from Jibou or Andrássy from Gârcei got rich out of several objects that originated in this area. They said that the peasants that used to work the lands of the noble families could pay their duties also by the antiquities that they found in Moigrad area.
There have been made several archaeological discoveries on Magura Moigradului dating back in the Bronze Age (approx. 2500–1000 B.C.). It is about pottery and a bronze ax that is in the collection of the History and Art Museum of Zalău. This last piece represented to the tribes in the Bronze Age from South East Europe, the main form of expressing the social status of the beholder. In other words it was a sign of power in the first place, and only secondly that was a weapon.
By the end of this period, around year 1000 B.C. one can find various bronze objects that were found in true thesauruses. They are 5 or 6, and were accidentally found by the end of the 19th century – beginning of the 20th century and they are today in the collections of national and international museums. Hundreds of bronze pieces that gather a significant quantity in metal (certainly a wealth by those times) suggest that around year 1000 B.C. and in the next century there was an important power center in the antique area of Porolissum. This area thrived firstly due to the control that exerted on Poarta Mesesana pass that was cut by Ortelecului Valley. Until late, when modern roads were built, this pass stood as a main passage that connected central and northern Transylvania with the Upper Tisa.
From these thesauruses it can be seen numerous bronze vases, that was an asset of warrior aristocracy, and also weapons or decorations. The seat of this power center in the area of Moigrad was not yet discovered, but there are several clues that lead us to ”Dealul Cămnin” from Jac village, Creaca, where there was briefly researched a citadel with earth bank and a defense ditch.
DACIAN AGE (2nd century BC – 2nd Century A.D.) Poarta Meseşană pass and its defence were made by the Dacian kingdom, by the Dacian state, by their system, with the fortifications at the top of the hills: Poguior, Citera and Măgura Moigradului. Citera Hill stands as an isolated height with three steep sides, and a forth that is a connection from South West towards Pomet Hill. On Citera Hill the Romans built a fort for auxiliary troops. This was located about 500 m East – North – East to the Eastern corner of the fort on Pomet Hill. The archaeological diggings from 1958 revealed a level that was fired during the Dacian habitation. By 1958 there was found an earth room that seems as an annex, which was, at the beginning and also later on, described as an inner ditch. The subsequent archaeological research that studied the layout in several places proved that this bank was in fact the shoulder of the ditch that was visible from the surface. Currently this is blocked with the remaining of another bank. On the Southern and Northern part the path of the bank and ditch may only be presumed, the steep slides together with the anthropical factors (on the Southern side there are still visible the Roman areas for mining the rocks needed to erect the fort) destroying or hiding the shape of the settlement. Therefore the presumed room suggests a somehow rectangular shape with the sides of about 300x200m, the shape of the room following the geological level difference line, located at least 15-20m lower than the maximum height of the hill. Even though none of the archaeological research performed at this settlement found any archaeological material, one can make the assumption that this settlement was built in the Dacian age.
The presence of the fort from Măgura Moigradului in the area of Meseş Gate is not at all by chance.
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This compulsory pass point, the main access for the North West routes towards and from Transylvania, stands as a vital path that was used both by merchants and by anyone that sought to enter or exit Transylvania.
Hill of volcanic origin, a massive mass of rock (andesite, granite etc.) that is still mined today of a quarry on the South-Western side of the hill, Moigrad Hill stands as a magnificent cone with the maximum height of 514 m, and with a level difference of 224 m to the valley of Ortelec, that had created the named pass. The upper plateau of the mentioned volcanic cone, in oval shape, has a large diameter of about 400 m and a small one of around 250 m, with a total surface of 7 hectares. Entered early in the literature because of the discovery of a Dacian thesaurus of silver ornaments or coins, and later on after archeological researches from 1938-39, 1940-41, 1958-1959. Considered at first a Dacian necropolis of cremation, Moigrad Hill appears increasingly as a large and prosperous Dacian fortified settlement, preceded by an area with religious character dating in the second half of the 2nd century B.C.