Folia archeologica 26.

István Ecsedy: Vinca finds in the collection of the Hungarian National Museum

VINCA FINDS IN THE COLLECTION OF THE HUNGARIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM ISTVÁN ECSEDY The objects of Vinca provenance, kept in the Prehistorical Collection of the Hungarian National Museum, came into the possession of the Museum partly in 1932, through the donation of Professor Dr. Sima Trojanovic,

1 partly with the FleissigCollection, taken over after World War II.

2 Though their find circumstances are unknown, it may be assumed that they came from surface collecting, perhaps from smaller illicit diggings. As for their find place, the inventory entries are authenticated by the archival data as well as by the evident typological identity of the objects in question with the material, published by Vasic. 1. Fragment of a clay altar. Inv. no.: 1974. 25. I.

3 (Figs. 1

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2). The small, reddish-brown altar of a square form with rounded corners is broken in the middle line. The outside of the legs is covered by a linear pattern, the side of the altar slab, decorated with meandroid patterns, forms a raised rim, protruding at the corners of the altar. On the rim there is a fragmentary figurine of a seated woman, her feet resting on the altar slab. The upper part of the statuette is broken but the plastically raised left breast and a part of the incised, double triangle pattern between the breasts remained. The place of the right lower arm, attached to the side of the body and broken off, is still discernible. From the waist downwards the whole surface of the figurine is covered with a stitched pattern, arranged in vertical rows, indicating the dress, closed by two parallel, horizontal incisions under the knees. The toes are marked by short vertical incisions. On the left of the female figure, on the rim of the small altar, there is a fragment of a leg and the place of further three legs, broken off. The outer side of the remaining leg is decorated with incisions. It is presumably the remain of a smaller, altar-like table or perhaps that of an animal figure. The best analogy to the fragment shown, having details very close to it as for the position of the seated figurine and the representation of its dress, resp. the 1 Dept. of Arch. Archiv no. 3/1932. 2 Ibid. 58/1944, 21/1947, 82/1949. 3 The object was in 1950 not inventorized together with the other pieces of the Fleissig Collection, it belonged, though, doubtlessly to these as proven by the fact that its three-figure accession number fits into the serial numbers of the inventorized Vinca pieces.