strategic point that controlled the main route from italy to the Balkans. Written sources for the period of the second and first centuries b.c. report that the first people to live there were members of the Celtic tribe Taurisci.

Roman Emona was situated on an important road coming from Aquileia, Poetovio, and Siscia and riverine routes on the river Sava, and the town fully exploited its strategic and commercial position. According to a construction inscription found in Ljubljana, Emona was founded between a.d. 14 and 15. For a long time, Emona was believed to have developed from the Roman legionary camp of the Legio XV Appolinaris, which was stationed in this area until around a.d. 14 when it was transferred to Carnuntum near Vienna. However, recent studies by j.šašel have cast doubts on that thesis. One of the major arguments for the prior existence of the legion’s camp is Emona’s rectangular town plan. The town’s walls measured 523 meters by 425 meters, and they were fortified with twenty-eight towers and four reinforced gates. An important early Christian complex was built in northwestern part of the town in the fourth century a.d.

The beginning of an interest in the antiquities of Emona (mainly epigraphic) can be traced to the fifteenth century. Rich epigraphic monuments and historical studies had long been the main focus of scholars from the seventeenth century and were published by German historian T. Mommsen, who was in charge of the “Limeskommission” set up in 1892 to investigate Roman remains. The establishment of the Provincial Museum in 1821 and the Museum Society in 1839 in Ljubljana gave an important impetus to the historical and archaeological research of the Roman town. In 1879, A. Mullner, the curator of the Provincial Museum, published a monographic study of Emona. In Archaologische Studien aus Krain he wrongly located Emona at Ig, a village some 10 kilometers south of Ljubljana. However, in 1898, Mullner started to excavate the Roman cemeteries in Ljubljana.

The first large excavations of the cemeteries began in the period between 1904 and 1907, and after almost 100 years of archaeological research and excavations, the Emona cemeteries are now among the largest excavated in the Roman Empire. Since 1635, when the first grave was reported, there have been more then 3,000 documented Roman graves in cemeteries situated outside the town and along the roads to Aquileia, Siscia, and celeia. Excavations of the settlement were initiated by the Provincial Museum, and between 1909 and 1912, almost one-third of the town was excavated. Walter Smid, the curator of the museum, published his results in Jahrbuch fur Altertumskunde in 1913.

The next large excavations were carried out by a city museum in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of extensive city development. The most important result of these excavations was the discovery of the early Christian center, comprising an administrative center, rich residential buildings, and town infrastructure.

Milan Lovenjak

References

Petru, S. 1972. Emonske nekropole (odkrite med leh 1635–1960). Ljubljana: Narodni Museum.

Plesnicar, L. 1972. Severne emonske nekropole. Ljubljana: Narodni Museum.

Šašel, J. 1955. Vodnik po Emoni. Ljubljana.

———. 1968. “Emona.”In Real Enciklopadie, Suppl. XI, col. 540–578. Stuttgart.

Enkomi-Ayios Iakovos

Enkomi-Ayios Iakovos on the east coast of cyprus is the largest and most extensively excavated late–Bronze Age site on Cyprus. Early excavations by the british museum (1896) concentrated on the rich tombs, and it was subsequently recognized that they had been constructed within houses and open spaces inside the city walls. Additional work at the cemetery was undertaken by the Cyprus Museum by j. l. myres (1913), R. Gunnis (1927), and the Swedish Cyprus Expedition. Major excavations by porphyrios dikaios (1947–1957) and a French team directed by Claude Schaeffer (1934, 1947–1974) concentrated on the settlement. The Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus has precluded further research at the site since 1974.

Extensive excavations revealed a large walled city laid out on a grid plan. There are numerous