Communicationes Archaeologicae Hungariae

Space use in Syrmia during the Migration and Avar periods

Ivan Bugarski — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Lying between the Danube and Sava rivers, the region of Syrmia used to be the northern fringe of the Roman Empire and, later on, the southernmost land of the Avars. It had been named after one of its few cities, Sirmium, which started to lose its importance by the beginning of the ﬁfth century. After the fall of the Hunnic Empire, Syrmia was controlled by the Ostrogoths. In 510 the Romans had to accept that the whole of Syrmia was Ostrogothic, except for its southeastern corner with the city of Bassianae. Around the year 512 Emperor Anastasius settled the Heruli there. The Gepids, with short interruptions, held Sirmium for almost a century, from 474 to 567. In the course of more than a century, the way of life and space use in Syrmia underwent significant changes, and it appears that the crisis was further deepened with the arrival of the Avars, who seem not to have settled the region on a large scale.

Central places or ritual places and the oldest hillforts in Slavic territory in Central and Eastern Europe (5th/6th–7th centuries)

Bartłomiej Szymon Szmoniewski — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Besides the open settlements commonly linked with Early Slavs, another settlement type, consisting of a hillfort-like part and some small hamlets in its vicinity, is also present in the 5th/6th–7th-century AD archaeological record of Eastern and Central Europe, with concentrations in the Upper Dnieper and Middle Daugava basins. A part of these ‘hillforts’ probably served basic defensive purposes, providing shelter for the nearby communities in times of danger (Shmidt 2003, 22–23). Another use of such hillforts along the upper course of the Dnieper was suggested by Tret’yakov (Третьяков), who referred to them as ‘sanctuary hillforts’ (Tret’yakov 1958). In light of recent research, some of these sites were really used for purposes other than defence, related to the religious and funerary realm instead. By systematising and completing earlier descriptions, the hillforts in focus – of this latter type – can be characterised by their setting (rising above the surrounding landscape), specific layout of their interior, insignificant defence abilities, presence of layers with burnt bones (including humans), and the presence of artefacts (including imports and items associated with non-agricultural activities) otherwise unusual in the find material of the cultures emerging at the beginning of the Early Middle Ages in Central and East Europe (Dulinicz 2000, 85). These hillforts were likely multifunctional, serving diverse purposes and always adapting to actual demand.

Petrographical and mineralogical analyses of pottery from the cemetery of Mödling-An der Goldenen Stiege (Lower Austria)

Roman Sauer, Falko Daim, Katharina Richter — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Representative samples from various vessels found in an Avar cemetery at Mödling-An der Goldenen Stiege were analysed using archaeometrical methods. The samples were selected by Falko Daim in 1997. This paper gives a short overview of the methods applied for the archaeometric pottery analyses, presenting some typical examples and providing a first overview of some, still preliminary, analytic results and their interpretation. It also briefly discusses the benefits of some techniques used for these analyses.

Burials with sheepskins in light of the changes between the Early and Late Avar periods

Zsófia Básti, Bence Gulyás — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The article discusses graves in the Carpathian Basin that contain the skulls, legs or other remains of flayed sheep. Based on the distribution of the phenomenon, the burials of the Early and Middle-Late Avar periods can clearly be distinguished from each other. In the Carpathian Basin, burials with sheepskins concentrated east of the Tisza River in the Early Avar Period and reflect connections to the Eastern European steppe. After the mid-600s, the phenomenon became common in a much wider area and the method of flaying also changed.

Typological analysis of beads from selected Late Avar cemeteries

Réka Fülöp — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

During this study, selected bead material from 172 graves of 17 sites was analysed morphologically. As a result, we created a classification for Late Avar period beads. Compared to earlier Carpathian Basin bead typologies, our approach prioritises the technique of production as the primary factor in classification, with formal characteristics considered secondary. Additionally, the analysis emphasises an overview of the different technological features essential for identifying local bead production. The typology is far from complete and is currently at a research stage but can be expanded with new data.

Make me a star

Pia Šmalcelj Novaković, Anita Rapan Papeša — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Earrings with a star-shaped pendant (also mentioned in literature as zvjezdolike, Ohrringe mit Sternzier, and Ohrringe mit Sternverzierung) are one of the rare types in the Avar cultural circle to which researchers pay special attention and dedicate separate papers. In recent times, archaeological research on the Avar Period in Croatia has made significant progress, primarily in processing previous results and discovering new sites in the eastern parts of the country, and especially in the easternmost parts, the area of Western Syrmia (Srijem). Renewed research efforts in the microregion brought to light a relatively wide variety of such earrings with diverse morphological characteristics and decoration, as well as material choices and, accordingly, production methods. This study aims to assess hoop earrings with a star-shaped pendant as markers of status and identity using existing typology and models while emphasising the differences in their production and materials, as well as the late 8th-century fashion trends.

Asymmetrical relationship between a peripheral region and the Late Avar Khaganate

Erwin Gáll, Levente Daczó — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Altogether, nine sites dated to the 7th/8–9th/10th centuries have been recorded during planned and rescue excavations and fieldwalking campaigns in the Sighișoara microregion, which lies in the inner part of the Transylvanian Basin, almost at the centre of a distinct geological and tectonic unit. Only four of these have been excavated (Sighișoara-Weinberg / Dealul Viilor: ‘Settlement / Siedlung’, and ‘Funerary site / Gräberfeld’, Albești-Cetățea, Albești-Școală), while the others were identified only through fieldwalking surveys, i.e. their extent and character have yet to be specified. There is no decisive and firm archaeological evidence that the microregion of Sighișoara and the eastern parts of the Transylvanian Basin were active parts of the political power network of the Late Avar Khaganate. These territories may be better described as a land of politically unorganised communities with clearly asymmetrical links to the power centre and the peripheral regions of the Avar Khaganate.

‘Nitra-type’ cast earrings in the Middle and Lower Danube region

Natália Gerthoferová — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The study reopens the question of ‘Nitra-type’ cast earrings by overviewing and analysing their origin, dating, and spatial distribution through comparing the finds from the Middle and the Lower Danube Region. These earrings were spread over a wide area in the Lower Danube Region, where the type emerged; they remained in fashion from the mid-9th to the end of the 10th century. There is evidence of their local production in this area. In the Middle Danube Region, they concentrated around the post-Great Moravian centres, mainly Nitra, where they were in vogue for a relatively short period from the end of the 9th to the mid-10th century. The ‘Nitra-type’ cast earrings indicate not only contacts between the territories of the First Bulgarian State and the area of Nitra but also the migration and settlement of people from the former.

The southernmost exceptional archaeological discovery from the Hungarian Conquest period

Milica Radišić, Viktorija Uzelac — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The article provides a detailed analysis of the finds from a destroyed Hungarian Conquest Period warrior grave at the site of Mašić Salaš (Stanišić), in the Municipality of Sombor: a gold finger-ring, four gilded belt mounts, and a gold hair ring. The finger-ring, with a massive bezel set with a carnelian gem bearing the simplified representation of a lion, most probably of Sasanian origin, ranks among the most luxurious objects of its kind in the Carpathian Basin and Eastern Europe. Closely related examples of the fragmented belt set have been identified in Russia and Kazakhstan. The grave is associated with a reputable member of the elite who belonged to the first generation of Hungarians conquering the area of today’s northern Bačka in the first decades of the 10th century.

Considerations on the production and distribution of pottery in Dobruja at the beginning of the Middle Ages

Cristina Paraschiv-Talmațchi — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The paper draws attention to data that confirm the establishment of craft areas and commercial activity providing evidence of the production and diffusion of pottery in the territory of Dobruja (southeastern Romania) in the 10–12th century. So far, local pottery production has been proven by four pottery workshops, two tools used to create decorations, fifteen single- or dual-chamber pottery kilns, a few semi-finished vessels, and production waste. Some clues on the distribution area of pottery made in Dobruja were obtained by analysing the decoration and fabric of vessels with potter’s marks. The data presented can contribute to the reconstruction of the production and distribution of pottery, the most abundant find type present in the record of dwellings from the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Beszédes József: Római kori sírkövek Carnuntumból és városi territoriumáról (Römische Grabsteine aus Carnuntum und seinem Stadtgebiet) [Roman gravestones from Carnuntum and the territory of the town].

Rózsa Dékány — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

EnglishJiří Košta, Jiří Hošek, Petr Žákovský: Ninth to Mid-Sixteenth Century Swords from the Czech Republic in their European Context.

Boglárka Tóth — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The problem of ‘Epipalaeolithic’ in the Carpathian Basin

Kristóf István Szegedi, György Lengyel, Tibor Marton — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In the 1950s, a few hundred knapped stone artefacts were found at the Hont-Várhegy site during field surveys. The characteristics of the finds led Miklós Gábori to conclude that the assemblage represents the ‘Epipalaeolithic’ and the survival of the Gravettian with Swiderian traditions into the Late Glacial period. Research in recent years has cast doubt on the concept of the ‘Epipaleolithic’ in relation to the inner parts of the Carpathian Basin. Thus, the re-evaluation of the finds became necessary. The current article presents a techno-typological review of the finds of Hont-Várhegy, proving that the archaeological and cultural integrity of the lithic assemblages in focus is low and that the finds could be dated to the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and probably the Neolithic or the Copper Age.

X-ray and neutron radiography of Late Bronze Age weapons and armour from Western Hungary

János Gábor Tarbay, Zoltán Kis, Boglárka Maróti — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The study introduces 2D images of X-ray and neutron radiography analyses carried out on Late Bronze Age Transdanubian combat weapons, a potential shield fragment, armour, and helmet fragments. The results were provided in the framework of the ‘Technology, Use and Manipulation of Weapons from Late Bronze Age Transdanubia’ research programme (2020–2024). The studied finds originate from different sites and contexts: a rapier (Keszthely), swords (Nagydém A-B, Tab), spearheads (Bonyhád area, Budakeszi A-B, Celldömölk Ság Hill II, Keszőhidegkút, Pölöske), an arrowhead (Pázmándfalu III), a ‘helmet’ (Keszőhidegkút), a cuirass (Pázmándfalu I/II), a ‘cuirass/helmet’ (Szentgáloskér), a ‘shield’ (Szentgáloskér), and a dagger (Tahitótfalu). Using methods less applied in Bronze Age research in Hungary, we provided new results on the casting technology of these objects, casting defects, and production techniques and repairs of sheet metal objects.

A Late Bronze Age Collar from Somló Hill

János Gábor Tarbay, Tamás Péterváry, András Kovács, Bence Soós — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

An assemblage of over 5800 metal artefacts was discovered on Somló Hill during an archaeological metal detector survey in 2024. Preliminary typo-chronological examinations suggest that the new hoard most plausibly dates to the second half of the Ha B period. This report focuses on the most outstanding artefact in the assemblage, a gold-foil-covered neck collar (Halskragen). This collar is a unique piece of jewellery, not yet fully matched in style and form in Transdanubia. The closest analogues of this find are known from the hoards allegedly recovered in the ‘Thaya River region’, now in the collection of the Museum for Prehistory and Early History Berlin State Museums (Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin). Similar collars, looted by illegal detectorists allegedly on the hillfort ‘Tabulová hora’ in Moravia, are known to scholars from photographs only. Gold products decorated with concentric circles and cord-imitating patterns are known from the younger and from the late Urnfield periods in Transdanubia. The diadem and domed discs from Velem-Szent Vid are closely related to the Somló find in this respect. The best European analogues of this style are found on gold-foil-covered discs, diadems and gold vessels from Central and Northern Europe. The Somló collar provides further evidence that its place of discovery, the butte of Somló, served as one of the elite centres during the Ha B phase of the Late Bronze Age.

A unique Early Iron Age brooch from Somló Hill

Bence Soós, Balázs Lukács, Csilla Líbor — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The aim of this paper is to present an important addition to our knowledge about the Early Iron Age of Somló Hill. In early February 2023, during a metal detector survey of the hill volunteer detectorist Roland Moklovsky found a bronze brooch decorated with a small ornithoid figurine. Although the item is a stray find, its typological relations, and technical characteristics make it one of the most significant archaeological discoveries on the hill.