<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

Birth was one of the most magical, miraculous, and blessed events of post-paleolithic spirituality. The Mesolithic - Early Neolithic rock art paintings of the Ranaldi Shelter (Southern Italy) give distinct visual evidence to a universal subject: the woman during childbirth and the wild animal which, given the context data, is the adult male red deer. The pivotal personage of the drama, Mother Ranaldi, shares her iconographic canon with the Goddess of Childbirth in prehistoric art. She is a majestic, naked, corpulent and fertile anthropomorph who is delivering a new life between her generous thighs. The depiction of the newborn’s head emerging from the vagina emphasizes her female power to procreate. Mother Ranaldi is birthing flanked by two adult stags which she touches with her sacred hands. They are not ordinary animals. Their supernatural nature is described by three features: exaggerated unnatural antlers, clear epiphanic seasonal nature, and bicephalism. They were symbol of worship to the Goddess of Generation, acting as her <italic>paredri</italic> (supporting, assisting partners). Ranaldi Shelter was used during the seasonal relocation of cervids, which in spring moved from the plains to the summer mountainous ranges. Then, the red paintings had not only a sacred value. Having totemic nature, they carried out a territorial function by contributing to organize and mark the territory, possibly associated with appropriate rituals.
</abstract>

Mother Ranaldi: a post-paleolithic goddess gives birth flanked by supernatural stags

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In this article we will partially analyze the place of worship consisting of 7 structures discovered following preventive research on the A1 highway, Sibiu – Pitești sector, Part 5, Curtea de Argeș-Pitești. The discoveries are part from site 2, surface 11.
</abstract>

Universitatea “Lucian Blaga” din Sibiu

Some data about an early neolithic worship place

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

The rescue research carried out within the site Olteni - Sand Quarry (Site B), between 2005-2012, highlighted the existence of a settlement with dwelling features belonging to the cultures of Linear Pottery, Boian-Giuleşti and Precucuteni, phase I. In this study we present the anthropomorphic figurines attributed to the early Eneolithic discovered in this site, while discussing also the archaeological and chronological contexts from which they originate
</abstract>

Up and down. From Inner Curvature to Northern Wallachia and back during the 5th millennium BC

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Roughly a week before Ali Mihaloğlu, bey of Vidin and Smederevo, raided Oradea (February 7-8, 1474), the royal link between Hungary proper and the Voivodate of Transylvania, the Commune of Ragusa, equally vassal to Ottoman sultan Mehmed II and to Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, informed the Venetian doge, Nicolò Marcello, her Adriatic neighbour, about the most recent developments at the Porte, as well as both at the Porte’s Asian and European borders (January 31, 1474). From the latest news on Usun Hassan, still viewed by some as Christendom’s main anti-Ottoman hope (in spite of the crippling losses he had suffered in August 1473), Ragusa moved on – in her message to Venice (earlier Usun’s main supporter) – to the combats in <italic>Vlachia Maior</italic> (Wallachia proper), recently invaded by Stephen III <italic>the Great</italic> of Moldavia (November 8-30, 1473). The information had likewise been provided by the Ragusan envoys to the Porte, who had just returned to the Adriatic, after departing from Constantinople (Istanbul) on December 28, 1473. With Venice waging an increasingly desperate war against Mehmed II (for ten years and counting), the task of conveying Ottoman inside information was very delicate for tribute paying Ragusa.The Ragusan message is the only extant known source to state that Stephen III <italic>the Great</italic> had won Wallachia from Radu III <italic>the Handsome</italic> for the benefit of Vlad III <italic>the Impaller</italic>. The rest of the known sources (however chronicles, not documents) claim that Stephen enthroned Basarab III <italic>Laiotă</italic> as ruler of Wallachia (<italic>Laiotă</italic> was his Wallachian ruler of choice until autumn 1474).Ragusa’s Venetian message bluntly contradicts the known contemporary data on Stephen III’s intervention in Wallachia in November 1473 and on the subsequent events, data preserved only in the chronicles of Stephen III (chiefly in the <italic>Moldavian-German Chronicle</italic> intended for Habsburg subjects, around 1499-1500) and in the writings of Jan Długosz (notoriously hostile towards the Hunyadis).
</abstract>

Romanian Academy, Bucharest – Babeş-Bolyai University

The Asian and Balkan Background of <italic>Draculia</italic>’s Wallachian Restoration (1473-1474)

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For Pope Pius II, Vlad was <italic>John Dragula</italic> and his cruelty completed the lamented fate of the Wallachians, Rome’s Eastern forgotten children, still capable of finding recovery and redemption, Vlad included, under the authority of Matthias, the king of Hungary and of <italic>Dacia</italic> (according to the same pope). Basarab IV, <italic>Cypelles</italic> for Beatrice of Aragon, that is either “Little Impaller” or “Little Shoemaker”, seems to have been quite the opposite, though otherwise his and Vlad’s “career choices” were quite similar: Vlad went from pro-Ottoman to pro-Hungarian, “chosing” West over East, and Basarab turned from pro-Hungarian to pro-Ottoman, inheriting also Mara Branković’s “medial” stand between West and East, that favoured a pro-Ottoman status-quo at the borders of divided Christendom. Their short “joint-rule” over Wallachia, turned into Christendom’s trench by King Matthias, Christendom’s hope, and Stephen of Moldavia, the <italic>athlete</italic> of Christendom, is eloquent for the bi-polar survival of a divided state that gradually came to a – temporary – end once both <italic>Ţepeş</italic> and <italic>Ţepeluş</italic> were gone. This occurred under the rules of Vlad IV <italic>Călugărul</italic>, a former monk, Vlad’s half-brother, and of his son, Radu IV <italic>the Great</italic>, an “agent” of Venice and of the Porte. At that time, the Greek rite Brankovićs were still barons of the realm of Saint Stephen, as well as “registered voters” at the royal Hungarian elections of 1490, the year that stands for both the end of Matthias’ plans and hopes for his son’s monarchic survival and in fact – in early modern Wallachian chronicles – for the end of Stephen III’s <italic>16</italic>/ <italic>17 years</italic> of rule over Wallachia.
</abstract>

From <italic>Dragula</italic> to <italic>Cypelles</italic>: Wallachia in the Late 1470s

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Volume 20 (2021): Issue 1 (December 2021)

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Volume 18 (2019): Issue 1 (December 2019)

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Acta Terrae Septemcastrensis

Volume 20 (2021): Issue 1 (December 2021)

Mother Ranaldi: a post-paleolithic goddess gives birth flanked by supernatural stags

Some data about an early neolithic worship place

Up and down. From Inner Curvature to Northern Wallachia and back during the 5^th millennium BC

The Asian and Balkan Background of Draculia’s Wallachian Restoration (1473-1474)

From Dragula to Cypelles: Wallachia in the Late 1470s

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