Research on Roman temporary camps around Brigetio (Komárom-Szőny) in 2019

Abstract

Roman temporary camps are special archaeological sites. They appear on aerial photographs, but are invisible on the ground, and lack finds. In the Central Danube region the largest concentration of these nearly untraceable sites were discovered in the environs of Brigetio. The first camps were discovered through aerial survey in 1994, and the number of the camps has grown with the years. These sites have also been studied by field surveys in the past but all of these ended with negative results. In 2019, a very effective but new method was applied here, which is very similar to battlefield archaeology and uses metal detector-aided field survey. Using this method at four Roman temporary camps (BRI VIII–XI) resulted in a number of key findings in just one day of research.