Folia archeologica 39.

Tibor Kovács: Arcosedény Tószegről tőrábrázolással

FOLIA ARCHAEOLOGICA XXXIX. 1988. BUDAPEST A FACE POT WITH DAGGER REPRESENTATION FROM TÓSZEG Tibor KOVÁCS While examining the published finds from the 1952 campaign at Tószeg

1 we found a sherd which bore the plastic rendering of a dagger tip (Fig. 1. 2). Its recognition was undoubtedly facilitated by the knowledge of similarly decorated vessels from Dunaújváros and Mende.

2 This sherd — polished and brown coloured on the outside, coarse and grey coloured on the inside — is a fragment from the shoulder of a larger vessel. Its comparison with a fragment from a human face vessel (Fig. 1.1), also found at Tószeg during the 1948 campaign and presently exhibited on the permanent archaeological exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum, convicingly demonstrated that in view of their fabric, surface finish and colour the two sherds had originally belonged to the same vessel.

3 Their being part of the same vessel could only be challenged on the basis that according to the entry in the acquisitions register and the publication they had not been recovered from a similar depth.

4 In the following I shall try to dispel these doubts. The excavation and the separation of the finds was carried out according to spade spits. Even though the excavators admittedly tried to correlate these spits with hard packed earthen and clay levels — i.e. living surfaces and house floors — ,

5 the published sections suggest that this had only been achieved with a relative measure of success (cf. Fig. 2). A brief review of the layer sequence of the upper levels of the tell settlement adequately illustrates this point. The fragment with the dagger representation was recovered from spit c, whilst the human face representation had come to light from a deeper level, from spit e.

6 The lower section of the 21 cm thick spit с lay at a depth of 66 cm (measured from the surface); no settlement features or living surfacec had been noted in tit. The 'fill'1 Mozsolics 1952. 2 Makkay 1971; Kovács 1973. 3 Hungarian National Museum, inv. no. 18/1949.55 and 41. 4 Mozsolics 1952, 40 — 41, Taf. 5. 6 — vessel fragment with human face representation. No mention is made of the sherd with dagger representation by the author. 5 Csalog 1952, 21. G It is somewhat surprising that the vessel fragment with dagger representation that was described in detail in the acquisitions register escaped the attention of research in spite of its „rare plastic ornamentation", and also that it remained unpublished. 6 Folia