Projection 2
Stonemasons’ workshops in Dacia
The funerary, votive and public monuments, as well as the architectural elements on display, are made by stonemasons from the province of Dacia.
Lapicida (lapicidae) was the Roman term for stonemasons. They worked in officina (officinae), workshops specialized in cutting, shaping, carving and inscribing monuments. The workshops operated in the more important settlements of the province, serving the needs of their inhabitants as well as those of other nearby settlements. There were of course also itinerant craftsmen, who traveled according to commissions and produced the monuments requested at the commissioners’ locations.
The provincial workshops used specific templates for the main types of monuments and their decorations. The stonemasons worked as they were commissioned, using the models they had in their possession and, of course, according to the tastes of their customers. Sometimes they could also make ‘specific’ elements, but these did not alter the essential characteristics of the monument so as not to displease the buyer. The forms and decorations chosen for monuments in Roman Dacia illustrate the position of the provincial workshops in the cultural life of the Roman Empire as a whole, and the influences and directions in which certain artistic models were disseminated. At the same time, the productions of the Dacian workshops and the diffusion of the monuments within the province illustrate not only artistic, social and economic aspects, but also the level of Romanization and the adoption of a ‘Roman’ way of life.
Stone was taken from the quarries in the form of blocks and transported to the workshops. There were also workshops organized in the vicinity of the quarries, where different types of monuments were made on site. The stone was excavated using manual labor and various technological installations. In Roman Dacia, various types of limestone, sandstone, andesite or marble were quarried.
Various tools were used for cutting, carving, shaping and incising stone. Some of these are represented on monuments. On a capital discovered at Napoca, some of the tools specific to stonemasonry are depicted. The particular style in which some monuments are made, as well as the discovery of monuments in the process of being worked on, testify to the existence of stonemasons’ workshops.
Dacia Porolissensis is distinguished by the massive production of monuments, especially funerary monuments, the individualization of the workshops being defined by specialists on the basis of several specific criteria. Potaissa and Napoca are the main monument-producing centers in northern Dacia, followed by Gherla, Porolissum, Optatiana, Bologa, Samum and Gilău. The funerary monuments from Dacia Porolissensis, whose maximum density is concentrated in the Potaissa - Napoca area, are the work of a small number of craftsmen belonging to the same school. It is possible that they were made by itinerant craftsmen or were produced by a group of workshops developed around the same mother workshop.