Archaeological Techniques and
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Medieval Funerary Home
Digging Up the Dead: The Lost Churches
Medieval Funerary Excavation
Bradesti, Central Transylvania, Romania
June 15 - July 5, 2014
July 6 - July 26, 2014
2013 Field Season - Student Evaluation
As Europe redefines itself in the wake of the Ottoman invasion, the Carpathian frontier still holds fast against the Eastern invaders. Although Transylvanian suzerainty has passed from the Hungarian Kingdom, to the Ottomans, to the Habsburgs from the 15-17th century, its territory has never been invaded by the Turkish troops. However, the local populations lived under constant social, political, economic and religious stress. Since the Neolithic, Transylvania has been at the crossroads of European identity. During the late Middle Ages, this region goes not only through major political changes, but also through a spirituality crisis, under the pressure of Islam from the East and Protestantism from the West.
At the end of the 17th century, several churches around Odorheiu Secuiesc have been abandoned. What is even more interesting is that those churches were removed from collective memory as well. Not only the written records pertaining to these churches were destroyed, but the local communities forgot about their existence.
Our excavation aims at retrieveing the memory of these churches and to try to elucidate the social, political and religious context that created such an environment that would extract a church from local collective memory.
During 2013 season, we completed the excavation of two of these churches and associated cemeteries: Bradesti and Lueta. However, our osteology team has uncovered a very strange phenomenon: within the Teleac church, 69 out of 70 individuals were juveniles ans 49 were of preterm or fetal age, all of which dated to the 17th century.
During the 2014 season, we will explore the environment that created this very unique skeletal assemblage. As such, we will attempt to further excavate the surroundings of the Teleac church and its sister church in Valeni, as well as the other "lost churches" that we have identified in the region. Furthermore, we will investigate the building phases of the ecclesiastic buildings and their relationship to the deceased. These results could also shed light on the relation between the various churches and their subsidiaries. Through a more thorough study of the cemeteries and their occupants, we will also explore the different processes that led to the penetration of Protestantism in the region and then its subsequent return to Catholicism. The further study of the human remains in our osteology laboratory will provide a more detailed view of the human aspects of these transitions.
