Folia archeologica 23.
Tibor Kovács: Askoi, Bird-Shaped Vessels, Bird-Shaped Rattles in Bronze Age Hungary
ASKOI, BIRD-SIIAPED VESSELS 25 (Yugoslavia). 9 5 Even if we take into account that the emergence of new pieces may alter the picture, the surviving data refer to considerable differences in the cultural life of the two groups of the people of incrusted pottery. At the same time, they refer to the fact that the relationship between the bird-shaped vessels of the Szeremle group and the Dubovac-Cirna culture and the North-Transdanubian bird-shaped pottery is more complicated than believed so far —before a difference among the groups of the bird-representations has been established. 9 6 There is no doubt that the bird shapes of the Szeremle group emerged in Northern-Transdanubia. On the other hand, the cultic form there was the rattle, whereas in Szeremle, the vessel. With due consideration to this fact, we believe that in the emergence of the Szeremle bird-cult, the Vatya culture (cf. vessels from Dunaújváros and Törtei, Figs. 4-j) must have had a role. 9 7 Further, we may pose the question what relationship had existed between the great bird-cult of the Ûubovac-Cîrna culture and the cultures of other regions with the belief which tended to place certain statuettes in the graves. 9 8 Changes in the bird-cult of the Hungarian Bronze Age also reflect considerable ethnic transformations which decieed prehistoric events in the lives of peoples in the Carpathian basin. Research has established two such turning-points, when practically the whole Carpathian region had been brought under political control by a new folk whose ethnic significance and new social structure endowed it with sufficient strength to defeat the traditional economic and social development of the original inhabitants. One of these was the Pécel (Baden) culture arriving from the direction of south-east, the other coming from the west was the tumulus culture. However, research has proved that in the new conditions, the material culture and customs of the local middle Copper Age, 9 9 and even more, the middle Bronze Age 100 inhabitants had survived, althought they lost their independence and were politically ousted. It could not have affected the bird-cult, since in the Pécel culture there are no traces of it, and in the late Bronze Age, a few surviving relics remain of a cult referring to a new and different content. Of the bird-cult of the early and middle Bronze Age in Hungary, delimited by the two historical events, by way of summarizing, we can say the following: Bird-cult had been established in this region early in the second millenium, В. С., with the arrival of new groups of peoples arriving from the south-east and starting the early Bronze Age. In that period, the askoi were the bearers of the most significant belief. Among the relics of some more recent peoples —arriving according to research from the sout-east —(Pitvaros and Gyula group) we find no bird-shapes at all. This naturally does not mean the end of the cult, the more so, since from the Nagyrév culture, which genetically belongs to the Pitvaros group, 101 we know of the existence of askos. Indirectly continuity is proved by the idols of »5 Bándi, G.-K. Zoffmann, Zs., JPMÉ 1966. 48., Pl. VII. no. 1. 9 e For genetic relationship between the cultures, cf. Bándi, G.-Kovács, T., op. cit. 25 ff. 9 7 From scanty material available one can surmise that in belief-world of Vatya culture the bird-shaped vessel represented the bird-cult. 9 8 On this question, cf. Kovács, T., Arch. Ért. 99(1972) 47-51. 9 9 Banner, J., Die Péceler . . . 177-179. 10 0 Kemenczei, T., Arch. Ért. 90(1963) '(>9 ff-; Kovács, T., Arch. Ért. 93(1966) 159fr. I» 1 Bóna, /., Alba Regia 1965. 38-39.
