Residential building construction
Site ID: 62642
Keywords: Roman Age, layer finds
On July 5, 2020, the Budapest History Museum conducted archaeological monitoring of construction activities at 44 Tarhos Street. The plot, located at the corner of Szőlővész Street and Tarhos Street, lies within an area where Roman villa remains have been previously documented. As early as 1962, Klára Póczy mentioned surface-level remains in this vicinity. During the 2014 sewer installation in the framework of the “Budapest Complex Integrated Wastewater Drainage” project (BKISZ), building debris was recorded in the trench section corresponding to the local branch and main line; in May 2020, a gas line repair trench yielded a few stray fragments of tegulae.
On the 810 m² plot, which borders Szőlővész Street along its longer side, a residential building was previously located on the northern 410 m² portion. This structure was demolished down to the floor slab and replaced with a timber-frame, lightweight building reinforced with additional strip foundations. The new foundation trenches were only 30 cm wide and 30 cm deep and ran along the northwest and northeast walls of the new building. The building footprint measured approximately 75 m², of which earthworks affected about 20 m².
Within the foundation trenches, dark brown humic sand with minor modern debris was observed. At a depth of 20–25 cm, the original soil appeared, consisting of a clean, blackish-brown upper horizon. A few Roman tegula fragments were present in this layer, although the earthworks did not reach the richer Roman-period collapse deposit.
Due to the shallow depth of excavation, it was not possible to assess the density or extent of the archaeological site.
Contributors: Gábor Gyenes (archaeological field technician)
Gábor Gyenes