Sarmizegetusa Regia – the fascinating capital of the Dacian kingdom until the wars with the Roman Empire, built at over 1000 m altitude in the central area of the Șureanu Mountains, with neighbourhoods built on hundreds of anthropogenic terraces. In the part revealed after the excavation campaigns, we still can see the monumental stone structures used in masonry and the temples built by the Dacians in the 1st century BC and which functioned actively until their destruction by the Romans. The stone masonry were built from two varieties of rocks: pyroxene andesite brought from the Deva area and ooidal (fossiliferous) limestones from the Magura Călanului hill, probably the largest stone quarry outside the Roman Empire.
The mortar-free lifting technique proved to be extremely effective for the mountain relief, with double walls between which was placed emplecton (filling) made of fragments of stone and soil and reinforced by wooden tie rods, fixed in trapezoidal grooves (in the shape of a swallow’s tail) carved in blocks. They also had huge surface arrangements, retaining walls or water supply system.
The volume of stone used is unknown, but certainly very large, given the number of dimensioned elements currently found in the exposed area of the site, on the adjacent steep slopes or valleys – many of them victims of unfortunate of reconstruction attempts or negligence in preserving this exceptional historical site, part of UNESCO heritage.
Only an extremely small part of the civilian and military settlement on Grădiștei Hill is currently being researched, partly with access for visits, although the site is still waiting to be (re) discovered and highlighted, to tell the story of the greatness of a kingdom from the border of historical eras.
