Iron Age Venetian Horse of Sopron-Krautacker (NW Hungary)

Abstract

In 1982, a Late Iron Age horse burial was excavated in a large pit at the Iron Age settlement-complex of Sopron-Krautacker. A brief discussion about the horse and its ritual and cultural contexts was published in 1998 by Erzsébet Jerem. A more detailed description of the horse (pit 228) and the sacrificial ritual are the subject of this study. Based on the characteristics of the skull and the postcranial parts, the horse can be classified into a prehistoric type occurring in areas of the Central and Eastern Mediterranean. The nearest comparative horse type is found in the Northern Italian Veneto. Large stature (1.4–1.5 m) Iron Age horses are known at only a few sites in Hungary. According to our present knowledge, large Iron Age horses rarely occur in East-Central-Europe, and are imported from the Eastern-Balkan or the coastal regions of the Eastern Mediterranean.