Folia archeologica 45.

Zsuzsanna K. Zoffmann: Embertani leletek a Tiszalúc-sarkadi neolitikus lelőhelyről

DOG AS BUILDING OFFERING 87 "bronze age dog", the medium size (shoulder-bone height 53 cm) prehistoric sheepdog, Canis familiaris matris optimae /Jeitteles 1877/. The two breed of dogs had at least four different forms ofnead. Similar dogs were found on the excavation of Tószeg-Laposhalom

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9 in 1948. 4. DOG AS BUILDING OFFERING AT JÁSZDÓZSA The incomplete dog skeleton found at the Kápolnahalom, near the northern wall of the southern foreroom of house V/

1 (see above) in 1943 can be regarded as building offering. The function of the building or the person of its habitants made it necessary to offer a dog when building or overtaking the house. It was not a general custom, as in spite of the fairly large number of Bronze Age houses or parts of houses excavated in Hungary, such building offering is known from two tell sites as yet. Apart from Jászdózsa, similar offering is known from Tószeg-Laposhalom '73 from the house in V/B level at 122-142 cm depth. It was described by Ilona Stanczik

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0 : "from the remains of the rising wall, a clog skull was released", considered as "building offering". In both cases, only parts of the dog were deposited. This practice indicates a bleeding sacrifice. The head of the dog symbolising the animal could not be missed: the head in itself can stand for the whole animal. There are remarkably many dogheads found on Bronze Age sites in Hungary (skulls and pairs of mandibles). The cranial cavities of these skulls are typically broken or the facial part of the skull is detached. Compared to mandibles, the number of skulls found is modest

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. Canines were typically detached from the skulls and the mandibles post mortem. The custom of wearing dog tooth amulets is known from this period. A special case for this is known from the Early Bronze Age cemetery of Mokrin

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, where altogether 276 pierced canida canines were found in 25, exclusively female graves (in 21 graves 211 dog teeth, in 5 graves 13 fox teeth, in 3 graves 3 woll teeth, and in 2 graves 49 dog and fox canines). The canines were thread from one to seventytwo in a row, accompanied by other finds as well. The traces of wear on the root parts of the teeth and the piercing denote long use. That is, these trinkets were not specially made for the funeral. The bleeding sacrifice of dogs in prehistory could be similarly motivated like the "chthonicus" known from more than a millennium later. We can suppose that the cultic act was performed at Jászdózsa as well as at Tószeg during the building of the house, more precisely, while making the basement of the wall. According to the Jászdózsa evidence, this offering was not the only animal building sacrifice in the life of the tell. In the beehive form pit cut at the bottom of the interior mould ditch, the skulls of 10-12 hunted animals (aurochs, red deer, boar and bear) were placed. This bleeding sacrifice was performed before the construction of the palisade wall mould ditch in the classical period of the Hatvan culture

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9 Reményi 1952 2

0 Stanczik 1981, 67., 76., Fig. 6. 2

1 E.g.,

/Шаг (Bökönyi 1982, Table 3), Fiizesabonv-Öregdomb (Vörös 1987) 2

2 Giric 1971 2

3 Stanczik 1982, 384.