TULCEA
Tulcea county residence.
(founded 1950; history, ornithological, malacological collections, aquarium)
(includinf works by Dobrogean artists)
vestiges of the Aëgyssus stronghold (archeological site)
(19th century)
(1879, founded in the presence of dr. Carol Davila)
(authored by George Vasilescu, inaugurated in 1904, remade in 1932 and 1977)
The Harbour
The belvedere
"as only a few are to be seen in the country" (Nicolae Iorga)
"There is an old citty by the Danube or Ister, / With strong walls: it is not easy to get in; / Aëgyssus built it and it is named Aëgyssus" - confirmed Publius Ovidius Naso.
The oldest map that shows Dacia (Tabula Peutingeriana, 2nd-3rd centuries) places between Noviodunum (Isaccea) and Histria oonlu the town Ad Stoma, approcimately on the site of the above-mentioned fortification; as there is no other evidence, we take for granted the metaphor of the poet, generally well informed, adding that by "the Delta's gate" the Romans had a base of the Lower Danube fleet.
That the life roots at Tulcea are deeper is proved by the
traces of the Hallstatt settlements (11th-7th centuries BC) on the Dealul Taberei Hill;
"lowered", according to the Roman habit, closer to the access ways, the fortification
was consolidated in the 2nd-3rd centuries, ruled bu the Byzantines (8th-9th centuries),
used by the Genoese (10th-13th centuries), engulfed in the pre-feudal indigenous
formation ruled by Balica, by Dobrotici (hence, probably, the name of Dobrogea),
and, starting 1390, by Mircea the Old "... by the will of God mastering and
ruling ... on the either side all over the Danube down to the big sea and master of
the city of Darstor".
Starting 1416, the Ottomans controlled Dobrogea,
the locality became Hora-Tepe (The Hora / round dance/ of the hills, seven of them,
as the natives say, probably thinking of Rome) or Tulcea (there was a governor, Tula-bey),
appears in 1595 in accounts by Pado Giorgici, it is mentioned by Evila Celebi (1650),
Matteo Gondola (1674), by La Mottraye, who sees it in 1711 as "... a village
placed on a high place and guarded by small fortification with seven towers";
it was also called the Mill City - "On a coast hill, there appears a most pleasant
sight: it is a host of mills, hurrying, all of them, a if vying to finish
the job trhe soonest", wrote Boucher de Perthes (Voyages á Constantinopole,
Paris, 1853).
As early as 1848, the German Ungewiter mentioned "a small shipward
for 300 t river boats"; it got final contours after the Independence war (1877-1878).
Most of the Delta adventures start today in Tulcea.
