Folia archeologica 24.
Tibor Kovács: Representations of Weapons on Bronze Age Pottery
18 T. KOVÁCS being, as vessels (Iváncsa, Tószeg, Kunszentmárton) 2 4 or altars standing on human feet (Dárda), 2 5 later combinations of anthropomorphic-zoomorphic forms (the Tiszafüred askos — Fig. 9 - the Dunaújváros vessel in the form of a bird, lying on an altar based on human feet). 2 B The representations of weapons and human figures introduced here are embedded in this artistic interpretation, changed both in contents and form. They have in common the use of plastic forms, raised from the background, when representing human members, which breaks the rigidity tangible even on richly decorated Early Bronze Age figures. This break of style, observed on the figurai art of the Middle Bronze Age in Hungary, has both external and internal causes. We try to explain these for a period, when, in the 18-17th century B.C., the hitherto so uniform artistic idiom of the peoples of South-East Europe was disintegrated and at last, from the 16th century on, went fully to pieces. Differences in the arts of the peoples of Anatolia, the Greek mainland and the Carpathian basin became more and more marked, reflecting thus the different economic-social development. In scrutinizing the Mende jar (Fig. 1 ), we find new traits in the whole of the representation as well as in detail. Although anthropomorphic urns with human faces are not unknown in the Copper Age, in the first centuries of the Bronze Age we find no similar pieces in our area. 2 7 Neither was in the first half of the 2nd millennium B.C. the representation of human faces with raised features known: 28 the most important new feature is, though, that of the contents, as the dagger represented gives no doubt as for the human being symbolized here being a man. 2" These features emerge as something quite new in the last phase of the Hungarian Middle Bronze Age, not to be connected with the local art of the previous centuries either in their whole or in the details. Looking for concrete predecessors of the Mende and akin representations outside the Carpathian basin we come to similarly negative results. No contemporaneous pieces similar in conception and form are known. As for the function of objects, showing analogical features but 2 4 Tompa, F., 25 Jahre Urgeschichtsforschung in Ungarn 1912-1936. BRGK 24-25 (1934-35) 81, Pl. XXV, 3. - háncsa-, a specimen considerably older than the following ones: banner, J.-Bona, I.-Mdrton, L., Acta Arch.Hung. 10(1957) 96, Fig. 6, 2a-b. - Tószeg; Damjanich János Múzeum, Szolnok. Inv.no.: 63.270. 1.- Kunszentmártoni, -Several clay fragments in the form of human feet are known from the settlements of the Vattina, Gyulavarsánd and Füzesabony culture which could have belonged to anthropomorphic or zoomorphic vessels. 2 5 Bandi, G.-Zoffmann, Zs., JPMÉ 1966. 48, PI. VII, 1. 2f i Kovács, T., FA 23(1972) 16, Fig. 3. 2 7 Ka/icz, N., Die Péceler (Badener) Kultur und Anatolien. Stud.Arch. 2. (Bp. 1963) 19sqq. 2 8 Among the flat, resp. bell-skirted idols of the Early Bronze Age of the Carpathian basin there are but a few specimens, found mainly on the territory of Yougoslavia, where schematic representations of faces occur. Cf. Hoernes, M., Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst in Europa. (Wien 1915) 347; Korosec, ]., Some specimens of early prehistorical plastic art in Slovenia. AV 1(1950) 16, Fig. 3. - Beyond the pieces published here there is but one fragment from Tószeg where we find a plastically formed face: MNM Inv. no.: 85/1902. 16. Cf. Márton, L., Jelentés 1902. 32. On the face, flanked by two braids, the deep-set eyes and the mouth are marked with dots, the nose is rib-like. The unstratified fragment is, in want of parallels, undatable; its style points to the 15-14th cent. 2 9 We have checked the Hungarian Bronze Age burials containing daggers. Anthropological data are in the major part lacking but on ground of the other grave goods it can be assured that daggers were always buried with males in the Bronze Age.
