Sarmizegetusa Regia was the capital and the most important military, religious and political centre of the Dacians before the wars with the Roman Empire. Built on top of a 1200 m high mountain, the fortress, consisting of six citadels, was the core of a strategic and defensive system in the Orăștie Mountains.
Ruins of Dacian temples
Sarmizegetusa Regia the great circular sanctuary (sacred area)
Sanctuaries
Andesite sanctuaries
The Dacians were the ancient Indo-European inhabitants of the cultural region of Dacia, located in the area near the Carpathian Mountains and west of the Black Sea. They are often considered a subgroup of the Thracians. This area includes mainly the present-day countries of Romania and Moldova, as well as parts of Ukraine, Eastern Serbia, Northern Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary and Southern Poland. The Dacians and the related Getae spoke the Dacian language, which has a debated relationship with the neighbouring Thracian language and may be a subgroup of it. Dacians were somewhat culturally influenced by the neighbouring Scythians and by the Celtic invaders of the 4th century BC.
Two of the eight marble statues of Dacian warriors surmounting the Arch of Constantine in Rome.
Dacian Draco from Trajan's Column
Dacian cast in Pushkin Museum, after original in Lateran Museum. Early second century AD.
Roman monument commemorating the Battle of Adamclisi clearly shows two giant Dacian warriors wielding a two-handed falx