A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 32. Kunt Ernő emlékére. (1994)

TANULMÁNYOK - TOMKA Péter: Belső-Ázsia a magyar népvándorlás kori régészet látókörében (magyar és angol nyelven)

tion: „already the Avar invasion, in the middle of the 6th century, had brought related forms from the Altay region". Here we can take catch the origin of an attitude seems to be accepted even today, that is: everything which exists in the East is a primary phenomenon there, while it is a secondary one when occurs in our country... This means also a beginning of a new period in the researches of connections between the Migration Period and Inner Asia; a regular survey of every data furnished by special literature had started and these informations were continuously introduced by the researchers into their hypotheses. We have to admit that too much efforts sometimes led to errors. For example Ferenc Móra - who otherwise had a keen eye for ethnographic parallels - misunderstanding S. Solymossi's oral communication, created Uyghur analigies for the Early Avar niche graves which were cited even by D. Csallány in 1939 (burial in standing position). At the same time Tibor Horváth had used Kudyrge as an analogy already deliberately (Üllő-Kiskőrös 1936). In the large-scale reconstructions of Gyula László (whether he wrote on the Hungarian saddle of Koroncó, or on the golden bow of the Huns or on the Avar society) ethnographic-ethnological references are always peresent (following especially U. Harva's collections). During the reconstruction of variants of partial horse burial he writes a lot on costumes of Inner Asia and of the Altay region; on the explanation of the world tree and of the animal representations of the Mokrin jar on a shamanistic ground; on the ornamental head-dresses of the reigning princess of Cibakháza and on the representations of the Kudyrge stone, etc. After the 2nd World War this interest did not come to an end, on the contrary, together with an increase of the quantity of informations, it was becoming more and more definite, exact and comprehensive. Though, except a single attempt, nobody had tried to make a synthesis so far. Real analogies were cited which contributed to chronological questions and to interpretations while ethnic connections had been somewhat overshadowed (which, according to the present of researches, seems to be quite correct). Further on I shall enumerate a few names, problems and some object types, costumes or burial practices related to them to illustrate the nature of these Inner Asiatic connections. One of the earliest group of finds in the archeological record of Early Avars (the group of ob long-looped stirrups, bridles and slight speas) was determined by Ilona Kovrig (1955) on the basis of finds from Southern Siberia, the Minusinsk region, Khakassia, the Altay region, Northern Mongolia and of the monument of Tang Tai Cong. Béla Kürti (in "Szeged története") made attempts to separate the material remains and costume relics of Avars which could be traced back to Inner Asian traditions from those of Central Asian origin. In his book entitled "Az avarság és kelet" István Erdélyi tried to systematize the material accumulated so far. His main standpoints were: history of research, hypotheses on the Inner Asiatic origin of the Avars, costumes: funeral sacrifices, the analogies of horse burial, types of objects: stirrup and saddle finds and their representations, belt ornament types, hoe-like axe, earring types, types of weapons (chain armour, bow, arrows, swordsabre) and runiform witing, are included among the topics of the book. We have to keep in mind that since the sixties István Erdélyi had organized several archeological expeditions to Mongolia where together his Mongol colleagues he excavated and published finds from the Hiung-nu and Turkic periods. In his book written on the steppe Csanád Bálint (1989) gives not only the summary of results achieved so far but also a keensighted criticism of them (for example though there are unquestionable analogies of bronze working and of animal 175