Transmarisca. Stratigraphy, chronology, topography

Transmarisca was an important military and civilian centre on the Danube border of the Roman Empire during the Principate as well as in the Late Antiquity. It is localized for certain in the northwestern part of the present-day town of Tutrakan in Bulgaria. A lot has been written on Transmarisca in the scientific literature and now it is considered by many researchers one of the sites with well elucidated chronology based on firm stratigraphic evidence. In most of the recent publications the thesis is persistently asserted that the two partially studied fortress walls in Tutrakan belong to one and the same Late Roman fortification, the area of which is estimated at 55–65 ha. That fortification is claimed to have been built in the period between 292 and 309/310 AD. It is also argued that no remains of an Early Roman military camp have been found in Tutrakan so far. However, the latest studies in the area of the so-called South fortress wall decisively refute these claims. Moreover, upon careful reading of the publications and comparison of what is written in them with the attached graphic documentation and photos, one does not find any confirmation of the proposed dating but just on the contrary – the stratigraphic realities drastically contradict it. The aim of this paper is to present a thorough critical analysis of all the available to date evidence on the stratigraphy, chronology and topography of Transmarisca. The result is that the so-called “general periodization” of Transmarisca, which was announced in 1999 for the first time and is still zealously maintained by some researchers, turns out to be simply a myth completely inconsistant with the facts.