Folia archeologica 46.
Kovács S. Tibor: Kemény János erdélyi fejedelem tatár buzogánya (17. sz.-i tatár fegyverek a Magyar Nemzeti Múzeumban)
JÁNOS KEMÉNY, TRANSYLVANIAN REIGNING PRINCE'S MACE OF HONOUR After their first appearance in Hungary in 1521 Crimean Tartar troops participated in almost every major Turkish campaign. The last invasion of the Tartars was in 1717 in Trasylvania. At the end of the 16 , h century Khan Gázi Girej II (1596-1608) in one of his letters written to the Sultan gives the following account on the role of Tartar army: "Tartars' duty is not to assault castles but their task is to devastate and loot the land of infidels marauding by and to take captives and to get food." Besides sabre and bow the most important weapon of Tartars was the pike with a hook (Fig. 1). In the Armoury Collection of the Hungarian National Museum there are seven weapons of certainly Tartar origin. First of them is a mace of honour, brought by János Kemény, the reigning prince of Transylvania (1661-62) from his Tartar captivity (Figs. 2-3). The head of the mace was made of wood covered by horny matter with a gilded silver plate over it. The plate has an indented margin and it is decorated by 13 rugh rubies within petal-shaped settings. The shaft of the mace was made of horn and its lower part is covered by a gilded silver plate with incised decoration. As the commander-in-chief of the Transylvanian invasion to Poland, János Kemény fell into captivity on the 31 t h of July in 1657 and was released only in the August of 1659. The mace of honour was given him because he was supported by the Tartars as the most important candidate for the principality of Transylvania. In 1667 about three thousands Tartars had overrun Zólyom county (today in Slovakia), but self-defending forces of the county triumphed over them. From the spoil a chainmail (Fig. 4), a mailed iron cap (Fig. 5) and a cavalry timbrel (Fig. 6) were transported to the town-hall of Korpona and at the beginning of the 19 th centyry the council of Korpona town bestowed them on the Hungarian National Museum. There weapons are present in the inventory book of the Hungarian National Museum published in 1825. The Tartar sabre on Fig. 7 had got into the Hungarian National Museum in 1933 from Vienna collections. Characteristic features of this weapon are its long guard with a lobate end, made of gilded bronze, and the ray-skin cover on its hilt and on the frontal part of the scabbard, while the dorsal part of the scabbard is covered by birch bark. This Tartar sabre was made most probably in the second half of the 17 t h century. The bows on Fig. 8 have chord pegs. Chord peg is practically a bone knob with a semicircular cut put below the bone part of the bow on the archer's side. This witty innovation makes aiming and the flight of the arrow more steady. While bows with chord pegs became widespread in the Khanate of Crimea and also in Russia, in Central Europe or the Osmanli-Turk territores this innovation was not applied on bows. Tibor Kovács S.
