Parţa neolithic site

The settlement has seven architectonical levels (over 2 m of deposits), from the Upper Neolithic (1-5) until the Copper Age (4300 CAL BC) .
The oldest remains are from the VI millennium, from the Early Neolithic (5.600 CAL BC), but the spectacular architecture dates between 5500 – 4800 CAL BC.
Blocks of houses with 6-8 rooms with floors, vestibules, annexes, ovens and oven soles, boxes for grains and vertical looms have been studied. The archaeometric prospects have confirmed the existence of some fortification systems and the organization of houses on street. Sanctuary 2 has been rebuilt inside the Museum of Banat with the original pieces and a Neolithic house has been remade.

Banat Culture

The most dynamic inhabitation belongs to Banat Culture from which at Parţa (level 7b) an imposing fortification system raises, in the centre we have the 1st Sanctuary, and the houses are settled around that centre, becoming a spiritual centre for many of the settlements of Banat Culture. Civilization, during an evolution of about 800 years, reaches the central areas of East Banat (Romania) and West (Serbia). The most imposing sites studied are those of Parţa, Bucovăţ, Uivar (first level), SânandreiT2, Sat Chinez, and in West Banat Jdjoš, Novi BečejT3 ş.a.

7	8	9	10
The Amphora	The man who shouts	Cat Cap	Cap owl

The origins are based on the local old evolution of the Late Neolithic and the Vinča culture as well as painted polychromatic ceramics. The two civilizations shall give birth to several related civilizations noticeable in the ceramic masterpieces but also in the laic and religious architecture as well as in the fortification systems, on large European spaces.

Groups, Dispersion and artistic masterpieces.

The first houses were of small dimensions not overcoming 10m2. From level 7b together with the fortification system the first big houses with wood structures arise. In levels 7c-6 because a strong fortification system was completed the houses could not expand horizontally and thus houses with several floors were built. The settlement is located on the bank of Timiş because of which the settlement was frequently flooded, for that reason in several complexes; especially the in blocks of houses the ground floor was suspended on pillars (like palafiteT6), and the walls were glued with clay from the level of the suspended floors upwards.
Houses with one room (15-18). These evolve from the cottage or tent with no walls or with light walls to the house with suspended floor.

The houses with two rooms or internal arrangements for sleeping, cult or grain storage diversify evolving towards the floor house, actually a block of flats with more rooms at ground floor or at other floors. Such houses appear in the neighboring areas from West Banat (Serbia), at Matejski Brod and in Hungary at Gorzsa and Herpály.

The contraction that has been raised during the level 7c/6 and destroyed in the second part of level Parţa 6, after a fire started from the centre of the settlement. Traces of sling balls of large sizes (not appropriate for hunting which are smaller) in many of the complexes with them are destroyed vases or cult installations and vases. The dimensions of the sanctuary were: length = 11.60 m; width = 6 m.
Sanctuary 2 was built over sanctuary 1 after its demolition. A part of the old cult objects have been ritually broken and laid in a pit under the floor of Sanctuary 2 like a foundation pit. Sanctuary 2, of small dimensions, has been built over Sanctuary 1, only a part of Altar A being preserved with the same functionalities, meaning the burning of offerings and laying the ash behind a pedestal on which a bust idol was staying probably having an animal skull. In our case we believe that it could be of an ox, the theme accrues very often in many sanctuaries and altars (at Parţa in P124 and others: Truşeşti). The reconstruction of Sanctuary 2 corresponds with some reconstructions of architecture, very probably at that time and at the fortification systems the works were completed as from level 6 the settlement develops on the vertical level. Together with Sanctuary 2 a large size construction arises towards north (P20) considered as having a social role.
The walls, many of them burning while still standing, have been pushed inside the construction after the end of the fire or just after the fire was put out, which allowed the preservation of many unburnt architectonical elements and their baking. After the walls were pushed inside, yellow soil was brought especially in the eastern area of the Sanctuary and leveled, the space not being inhabited, as it was a holly, taboo place. At level 5, south of the west room of the sanctuary, at about 2.5 m there is an altar (south altar), and over the west room, in the area of the older B Altar a well is being engrafted, a well that stops when it meets the yellow soil and does not go down to the sand layer. Most inventory objects have been discovered on benches, tables, altar-tables, each laid with a precise purpose. Thus the inventory is poor, compared to a house.
  Sanctuary 2 is separated from the beginning in two parts: the eastern part with the monumental statue, having limited access, esoterical, used only by priestesses/priests for initiations, blood libations, consecration of the sacred liquid and special rituals related to oblaţio, fumigaţio, mactatio and others, having on the eastern wall an entrance to the north and an opening to the south like a cabinet, probably covered and opened only on certain occasions. The monumental statue was in front of the cabinet. Behind the statue there were two altar – tables, and at the eastern entrance a little earthen table (baked, very probably before it was made of unburnt clay). The Sanctuary had several repairing periods (about 6-7 at walls, and 5 to the altar-tables). Along with the repairs some small modifications have taken place especially at the altar tables.
Astronomical Ritual Observations Related to the Sun-Moon
The Sun and Moon cult at Parţa is connected by the measurement of time and seasons. The site experiences and a study of archaeoastronomy have confirmed that at the beginning of fall on September 23 the Sun, before sunset passes through the corner of the Moon (identified with the Sun Light), comes in Sanctuary 2, passes through an orifice from the two rooms (B in A) and falls on the back of the double statue where there is an amphora with sacred liquid.  This is actually also the moment Cassiopeia passes in the fall from M in W and comes back in the spring. On the other side the light, during the other two seasons, passes near the loom, near the pedestal and the oven from Altar A suggesting the lighting of Light and Fire, it passes over the Amphora with human face where the meat offerings where laid in.

Links
1. Parţa The House of the Deer
 www.prehistory.it/ftp/parta_archaeological_excavations10.htm
2. Parţa Sanctuary form the Museum of Banat
3. Repertoire of Banat
http://arheologie.ulbsibiu.ro/publicatii/bibliotheca/banat/cuprins1.htm

The altar is a place in the temple or the sanctuary or outside them to which members of the community had access in order to lay offerings, depending on the cult needs or requests: invocations, supplications or thanks brought to the deity to whom the alter was destined. Several altars related to sanctuaries or the common sanctuaries have been identified, after they have been destroyed from level 6. The monumental altars can be common, for family use only or located outside the settlements, in the forests, the mountains, caves. At Parţa in the sanctuaries I have seen that several altar tables have been discovered. Their shape is rectangular, they had short feet. The monumental altars that are related to the sanctuaries are very numerousTheir shape and dimensions is different. After the model of these monumental altars small altars have been built in order to maintain the fire and sacred light, necessary to the sacred and the prophane.

At about 2 m, in front of the cabinet from the front of the monumental statue of Sanctuary 2 a rectangular altar has been raised suspended at a small distance above the ground (3+-40 cm) on wooden feet, with dimensions of 1.5 x 1.8/2 m with 2-3 layers of repairs, very probably of the shape of a baldachin on which offerings could be brought by prophanes destined to the deity Mother – Ox.

On level 5, after the destruction of Sanctuary 2, on the south part between the ex Sanctuary 2 and House P8 there is a rectangular altar (Southern Altar 2), partially deranged by the embankment works. Monumental altars exist at Pianul de Jos, Ghirbom from Transilvania and others.

Nearby Sanctuary 2, towards north there was a construction with public and social character, raised on level 7c/6 being parallel with Sanctuary 2. The construction had an upper floor, and at the floor it had an altar, actually a box. At ground floor and at the upper floor there were several grouped sling balls. The burning of offerings in sanctuaries, public houses, and family sanctuaries is related to the daily and periodical rituals.

  The research are not completely over, the new investigations have brought new data. The block had four rooms, each one of them being affected by previous different works (1931, 1943, 1996, 2005-2008). Initially the complex has been considered a block of houses but the latest studies have shown continuous inhabitations for many of the rooms even from the first phases. The construction in levels 7c/6 – 6 is a block of houses with a central hall way on the North / South direction. The four rooms all have had a floor and have been houses with an almost normal inventory. Room A during this period had floor with loom and some household vases. Room B or between this and room A close to the central hall way, very probably on the Eastern wall of room B the head of a deer with its original horns has been discovered. 2/3 of the room is outside of the studied area. Room C has been affected towards west by the survey of M. Moga from  1943 where the cult vase „The man who shots”  with sacred signs (it has the sign of Cassiopeia on the neck), has been discovered, with two mouths, considered by us as being used for libations with the sacred liquid related to fertility and fecundity.

The construction is part of a block of houses, partially destroyed by, only two rooms being discovered. The rooms with the oven had a floor glued with clay and very well polished (trimmed) and well preserved. The oven was arranged on a pedestal, with the sole in the shape of figure 8, a part with arch and altar in front of the moth. On its edges there were two rectangular orifices (with dim. of 5 x 8 cm) inclined. This reminds us of the oven from some of the sanctuaries from Bulgaria from Dolnoslav where on a box or oven there was an erected phallus together with two columns.