Elemente de spiritualitate dacica în nord-vestul Romaniei

The Dacian period discoveries with a spiritual character are mostly concentrated to the region of Magura Moigradului and the city of Simleu Silvaniei, with its sites called Observator, Cetate, Uliul cel Mic and downtown. The assembly of discoveries concering these points prove ritual-cultic manifestatios at the dacians whom have lived here. On the territory of Salaj County there were found traces of funeral ritualic practices in the city of Simleu Silvaniei. In 1997 the County Art and History Museum from Zalau provided artifacts that made the museum to open a rescue excavation at Simleu Silvaniei, M. Eminescu Street, no. 12 (Orhegy). Analyzing the found pieces (two belt buckles, the spearhead, knife or sword fragments, fibula, bit ring, applique, melted glass, etc.) made us believe that we are dealing with two dacian incineration graves, unique at this moment in the north-western part of Romania. Human sacrifice rituals were practiced as well, proved by two pits found on Magura Moigradului hill dating from the I st century BC, and another pit found at Simleu Silvaniei which contained the skeleton of a child. The ritualic pits can be found in large numbers, the most of them were discovered at Moigrad and Simleu Silvaniei. The most frequent ones are the pits that contain animal sacrifices or pots with different kinds of spiritual deposits. Besides these, in the bund of the pits were foud pieces that make us believe that the dacians in these regions were practiceing the ritual of fire and furnace, or some sort of agricultural rituals. The cultic dwellings are very rare and difficult to establish and sustain their character. The archeological axcavations made at Simleu Silvaniei - Observator have revealed the traces of a building which may have a cultical character. This building can be considered to be a sanctuary, because of its possible altar. The presence of a ritualic pit with a human skull insede it, can form an argument in the favour of this hypothesis. What concerns the complexes with certain ritualic elements, the term of cultic place can be attributed to Magura Moigradului, place that enetered in the speciality literature due to the ritual-cultic discoveries, and obtained also an initial interpretation that here lies a funerary monument. The points called Cetate, Observator, Uliul cel Mic and the centre of Simleu Silvaniei also gained such a prestige due to the ritualic element discovery. The grat conentration of ritualic elements here can be explained by the existence of traces of a great dacian tribe union, possibily the ancient Dacidava mentioned by Ptolemeus. Analyzing and compareing the discoveries of Salaj Couty with other found in this country, results the fact that the manifesttions with ritual characteristics are similar in all areas they inhabited. Future discoveries will certanly bring several clearences in this domain, too controversed at the present.