Folia archeologica 45.

Beszédes József: Dioscuros ábrázolású sarokkő Alsóhetényből

158 MIHÁL.Y NAGY panel, and identified her as Tellus; moreover rejected Supka's interpretation of the figure as Dea Syria.

9 Before the comprehensive study of Aladár Radnóti on the casket mounts found in Dunapentele, we find only two mentions of the Lovas casket.

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0 Radnóti gives a detailed analysis of a set of casket mounts with the representations of Heracles and Bellerophon, which is related to the Lovas casket in many aspects (Fig. 3).

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1 The casket from Dunapentele was found in a sarcophagus, containing grave goods dated to the middle of the 4th century A.D. According to Radnóti, the casket belongs to the group applying the 'Medallion style'

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2 which first appeared at the end of the 3rd century and reached its apex during the second third of the 4th century A.D. An outstanding characteristic feature of the Dunapentele casket is the total lack of Christian symbols, and therefore Radnóti had dated its manufacture to the reign of emperor Julian Apostate (361 -363 A.D.). He established, that it was a product of one of the important central workshops, possibly of that working in Sirmium, the capital of Pannónia Secunda.

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3 Regarding the Lovas casket, Radnóti stresses, that the craftsman who had made it, followed the traditions of the above mentioned workshop, and the representations of Heracles and Bellerophon are belonging to the latest phase of this tradition. He emphasizes furthermore, that the two caskets were not made in the same workshop, the latter being manufactured by a local master, working in a period, when the large central workshops were not able to supply them with prefabricated mounts anymore, i.e. around the turning of the 4th to 5th centuries A.D.'

4 Radnóti called the attention to the barbarous style of the mounts on the Lovas casket, comparing it with other mounts found in Dunapentele, belonging to the same period and milieu.

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5 He explained the barbarous finish of these mounts, and the appearance of unfamiliar motifs on them, with the advent of new ethnic groups of barbarian origin to Eastern Pannónia after 380 A.D. He had pointed out the connections between Pannónia and the circle of grave no. 20 at Szentes-Nagyhegy on the Great Hungarian Plain, and the impact of Eastern Germans both on tne material culture of this circle and on that of Late Roman Pannónia.

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6 The most recent comprehensive studies on the Lovas casket have been written by Dorottya Gáspár.

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7 According to her typological classification, the casket belongs to her Group II,

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8 and adds, that it is related to two caskets, regarding the combination of roundels and square fields.

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9 9 Kuzsinszky 1920, 179 and Supka 1914, 15 and 16. '"Nagy 1936, 19 and Fig. 1

6: he gives the findsite erroneously as Lovasberény. The same site appears in the article of A. Marosi

, Székesfehérvári Szemle 6, 1936, 113 too. 1

1 Radnóti 1957, 271-272; 274; 276; 328-330 cat. no. 19;Gáspár 1986, 155-156

cat. no. 402 (Hungarian National Museum, inv. no. 32.1906.36.). 1

2 For the dating of the Medallion style, see: Radnóti 1955. 182 and 184. To the origin and dating of the style and its application on earthenware cf.: Salomonson 1962, 84-88. 1:

1Radnóti 1957, 272 and 276. 1

4 Radnóti 1957, 295; Bellerophon appears on a series of belt fittings too, see e.g.: Burger 1974, 81 with further literature. 1

5Radnóti 1957, 280 and 290; 302. Fig. 66 (cat. no. 120) and 14. LXIV:3 (cat. no. 119). 1

6 Radnóti 1957, 27-279. See furthermore Párducz 1956, 165-177; and cf. the critical notes of Bona 1980, 489 about the 'Szentes-Nagyhegy Group'; and recently Nagy 1996. 1

7 Gáspár 1971, 14-15, no. 2; and 31-32. Cf. Buschhausen 1971 A 45; Gáspár 1986, 54, paragraph 52; 68, paragraph 79; 217, cat. no. 828; Babos 1986, 376: the box was made of pine [pinus nigra L. (Laricio var. nigricans Pari.)]. 1

8 Gáspár 1986, 54. 1

9 Gáspár 1986, 80: cat. no. 550 from Dunapentele and cat. no. 837 from Kisárpás-Mórichida.