About the project

What Unknown Histories is

Unknown Histories explores the past through concrete places, documents, archaeological discoveries and people. Sometimes the subjects are little known; at other times they are familiar events, seen through details or sources that are less often discussed. The choice of topics follows my personal curiosity, and publication follows the conviction that the results might interest other readers too.

“Unknown” does not mean deliberately hidden truths, conspiracies or sensational revelations. It means stories and questions about the past that are worth discovering, understanding and discussing with care for the evidence. Where the sources do not allow a firm conclusion, I try to say so plainly.

The articles are written first of all for people with a passion for history, including those without specialist training. The language is accessible, and technical terms are explained. At the same time, I would like historians, archaeologists and researchers who come here to be able to follow the sources and to distinguish between attested facts, interpretations and hypotheses.

The articles are published in Romanian, German and English.

How it began

History has fascinated me for a long time. A chance article, a mention in a medieval document or an archaeological discovery can catch my interest and prompt me to look further. Sometimes a seemingly simple question turns into several days of research, with sources, studies and interpretations that have to be connected with one another.

The first topics concerned the history and archaeology of Sibiu. After researching, for example, the medieval rotunda discovered in Huet Square, I went to the square to look for the marking indicating its location in the paving. I did not find it on the first attempt. The experience showed me how easily we can walk past the traces of the past without recognising them, and it contributed to the idea of a place where such stories could be explained and made more accessible. That is how Unknown Sibiu came about.

Over time, my research went beyond local history: medieval documents about the Vlachs, the history of Roman Dacia and of the period after the Roman withdrawal, as well as other questions about the past. This natural widening of topics also brought a broader name: Unknown Histories.

I did not start researching in order to feed a website. I was researching for myself, because I wanted to understand. When I found that some results seemed interesting enough to share, I began turning them into relatively short, easy-to-read articles. I hope they will spark the same curiosity in others and, now and then, offer even a specialist a detail or a question worth pursuing further.

The series

The articles are organised in thematic series:

• Unknown Sibiu — places, monuments, documents and hypotheses from Sibiu and its surroundings.
• Vlachs in the Sources — medieval sources on the Vlachs of the Balkans and the Carpathians, especially from the 10th to the 14th centuries, read critically.
• Roman and Post-Roman Dacia — the Roman province, the Aurelianic withdrawal and Dacia afterwards, together with the historical debates around them.

How I research and write

An article is not usually the starting point. First comes a question, then documentary research that may involve several stages: identifying the sources, consulting specialist studies and reports, comparing interpretations and summarising the conclusions. Several articles may come out of a larger piece of research, each focused on one clear question, without reproducing all the working material.

In research, in organising information and in writing I also use artificial intelligence, under human direction. It helps with going through and comparing material and with preparing summaries, but it can make mistakes, confuse sources or state conclusions too confidently. That is why I distinguish between what a source actually says, what follows from interpreting it and what remains hypothetical. AI is a tool of the project, not a historical authority and not a guarantee of accuracy.

A few principles guide my work:

1. I rank the sources. Wherever possible, I start from the primary sources and their critical editions, archaeological reports and specialist research. Publications by museums, archives and universities, as well as well-documented popular works, help to fill in the context. I do not treat claims without an identifiable source as sufficient evidence.
2. I pay attention to wording. Decisive passages are followed in the original text or in translations that can be checked, taking into account the context and the meaning of the terms.
3. I do not ask documents to say more than they do. A charter may attest a claim to lordship without proving effective control of a territory; a building project does not prove that the building existed.
4. I distinguish historical stages. The first documentary mention is not the beginning of a settlement, just as a rebuilding is not the same as the original construction.
5. I avoid anachronisms. Institutions, territories and the names of peoples are interpreted in the context of their time, without automatically mapping them onto today’s states, nations and borders.
6. I compare interpretations. Where relevant alternative explanations exist, I show what they rest on and where the uncertainties lie.
7. I correlate different kinds of evidence. In archaeology, for example, plans, stratigraphy, finds, documents and maps have to be read together; the absence of a find does not automatically prove the absence of a phenomenon.

Before publication, the text is checked against the research material, and insufficiently supported statements are reworded, marked as hypotheses or removed. The relevant sources are given in the articles, including in the final bibliography. The Romanian version is finalised before the German and English translations are prepared. Bibliographic references keep their original form in all language versions.

How to read the certainty levels

Each article gives, below the title, a certainty level for its central answer. Some passages may have their own level, and the section “What is certain, probable and uncertain” sums up the essential distinctions.

• Documented — a piece of information or a statement is explicitly attested by an identifiable source. This does not automatically mean that everything the source reports is true: sometimes what is documented is precisely the fact that an author of the time made a particular claim.
• Well supported — a reconstruction not stated directly by any single source, but consistently supported by the context and by specialist research.
• Plausible — a hypothesis compatible with the available evidence, but which cannot be considered confirmed.
• Uncertain / tradition — a disputed or undetermined interpretation, or an account preserved in tradition without sufficient contemporary confirmation.

These levels do not replace the arguments. They help the reader recognise the difference between an attestation, a well-founded interpretation and a possibility that is still open.

How an article is built

Each article starts from a question and gives the main points right at the beginning, in the “In brief” box: where, when, why the subject matters and what answer the evidence allows. Then come the context, the sources and the interpretations, with explanations of what each can and cannot prove. At the end, the article returns to the initial question, separates certainties from hypotheses and lists the sources consulted.

The aim is not to exhaust the subject in a single text, but to offer a clear, documented way in for anyone who wants to understand the topic or explore it further.

Corrections and suggestions

Any research can be supplemented or corrected. If you spot an error, know of a relevant source that is missing or would like to suggest a topic, you can write to istoriinestiute@gmail.com. Reasoned comments and bibliographic references are welcome.

When a substantive correction is made to a published article, for example concerning a date, a statement or the certainty level, the date of the update is shown, and the change is also carried over into the translated versions.

Who is behind the project

I am Dragoș Cociu, and I have a passion for history. I write with respect for the sources, for the questions that have no definitive answer and for the readers who want to discover more.