Horváth Attila – H. Tóth Elvira szerk.: Cumania 1. Archeologia (Bács-Kiskun Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei, Kecskemét, 1972)
E. H. Tóth: Előzetes beszámoló a kunbábonyi avar fejedelmi leletről
material, and elaboration techniques. Considering the fact that the granulated belt is uncommon in the Hungarian finds, and that the set of its accessories is incomplete, we have concluded that this granulated belt was the earliest. The belt with delicate gold fittings and similar set of drinking vessels and arms (bow, knives) indicate that its owner was —• to all probability — member of a princely family. The lamelliform belt can be regarded as the next in the line. Its accessories may have been the incomplete sword, the drinking horn — rather poorish as compared to the other pieces of the find —, the drinking cup, the quiver, the knives with masterly elaborated buckles, made probably at different time than the strap endings, These pieces, as they were added to the set one after the other, became more and more valuable. Looking at this set as a whole, we think that the dead had held a high-rank office, and then princely honour in his lifetime — for a long time as the seediness of some of the pieces indicate — and the gradual growth of this belt in value shows that his rank and honour became higher and higher. The least worn pieces of the find are the belt, ornamented with fake-buckles with red stone inlays — the largest ones among those known of to date — and with partitioned fittings, as well as its accessorils. A sword with similar, partitioned fittings, a dagger, a gold drinking vessel, and a drinking horn may have belonged to this belt. Taking the valuable pieces of the three sets, the stately robe used at the funeral, the gilded hand-cart and the unusual supply of vessels as the basis of assessement, we think that, as long as other, more complete and consistent finds do not refute our conclusion, we should regard this grave as that of a khakan, who — this has to be emphasized —• was not buried with his treasury, but with all his insignia worn in his lifetime, and the funeral was carried out with a splendour adequate to his rank. Let me mention that in the find of Martinovka there could be separated three silver sets ot belt and two sets ot harness and I am fairly sure that in the find of Malaia-Pereshcepina a princely grave as well according to István Erdélyi's announcement — there were at least three but probably no more belts. To sum up the evaluation of the find, we can conclude that this is a further item to be added to the series of gold princely finds with fake-buckles —being more than half a dozen already — dated to the period between 630 and 670. Thus, the overwhelming proportion of chieftains' and princes' finds dated to the fourth- seventh decades of the seventh century has further increased, underlying even more the almost total lack of princely finds from the following long period, when the rule of Avarian khakans was concentrated, and essentially restricted to the Carpathian basin. The relations of the Bócsa-circle — to which our find belongs as it is justified by several of its features — are well known. We know from earlier comprehensive studies that these finds can be related to those found in the central zone of Ukrainian steppes, those of Martinovka and Pereshcepina in particular, rather, than to the compressed finds of the board of the Black Sea. Some kind of relationship with the finds found along the river Kama is also known of. The new information gained, owing to the find of Kunbáb ony, is that after the find of Pereshcepina — in certain details the closest one to the Bócsa-circle — the foliated motive of cast fittings and the type of granulated belt-sets, similar to the find of Artzibashev, have appeared — in an even more articulated form — in the Hungarian finds too. With regard to Hungarian finds, the Bócsa-circle represents a separate group. The pieces first appeared around the 630's without almost any antecedent, and there is hardly any important type of objects which could be adjusted to the scope of typical Hungarian, early Avarian princely finds, dated by means of coins, or to the compressed finds closely related to them. These statements of earlier investigations are but supported by the find of Kunbábony grave. The analogies of the local characteristics of this find can be traced on the occasionally appearing, not too important, but by all means typical pieces of both types of finds, dated to the second half of the seventh century, forming a transition between early and late Avarian finds, rather than on those in the compressed finds. A part of these finds — as it has been referred to in connection with the analogies of our find — appear beside foliated cast sets, too, it must be noted, however, that — although, due to the shortness of time, I could not make a full survey of the material — I did 156
