Măgura Gumelniţa stand as a witness of natural erosion, a high hill part of the danubian terrace, situated at 3,5km east of Olteniţa. The archaeological site surface is about 3 Ha.
Many historians at the end of XIX century(among them, the manager of National Museum of Antiquities, Grigore Tocilescu), supported the thesis that on Măgura Gumelniţa they might found the old fortress of Constantiniana Daphne, mentioned by the byzantine historian Porcopius, fortress built by Constantine the Great himself, on the left bank of Danube, opposite from Transmarisca (today’s Tutrakan). The archaeological research didn’t confirmed the existence of such fortress, neither of a roman or roman-byzantine one.
Măgura Gumelniţa was rediscovered in 1924 by Vladimir Dumitrescu, who realised after seeing burned adobe and many ceramic pieces that here might be a prehistorically settlement. In the summer if the next year, he made the first diggings on Măgura Gumelniţa. Here and then took place the first Romanian stratigraphic survey in such a settlement.
Between 1938-1940, the manager of Municipal Museum of Bucharest, Dinu V. Rosetti, resumed the surveys on Măgura Gumelniţa. Calomfirescu, the property’s owner, told him (being a family friend) that he can dig anywhere he wants.
In 1960 Vladimir Dumitrescu returns, and helped by Barbu Ionescu, he made a stratigraphic survey, moment when he discovers that the layer’s thickness in some places if about 4m and that his observations from 35 years ago were correct.
In 2010-2011, the mayor of Olteniţa, willing to include the zone in the town’s touristic guide, asked for a Development Plan of the area from the National Committee of Archaeology.
First of all, they had to do a stratigraphic survey to verify the impact of the constructions. A topographic survey preceded these actions. The engineer that made those surveys told the authorities that Măgura Gumelniţa was terraced on all sides (on three steps, where they built houses). The community who lived here furbished their houses and the work places very well. That was discovered after the stratigraphic survey. Over the terraces were placed two rows of houses and in the middle was the sanctuary (from here they rescued miniatures of the sanctuary-only one of them had been restored).
The environment organization from Măgura Gumelniţa suggest that the whole plan was well thought, having the houses surrounding the sanctuary, that was, maybe, with a second floor, made to gather all the community members in one place for magical rituals or prayers.
Those clues show us today that the community was hierarchically organized and their influence reigned upon other communities in the area.
