A Herman Ottó Múzeum évkönyve 53. (2014)
Régészet - Tóth Krisztián: Noteworthy Findings of the Roman Age and Early Migration Period from Borsodszirák, Northestern Hungary. First Investigations
Noteworthy Findings of the Roman Age and Early Migration Period from Borsodszirdk 161 Conquest Period and most of the pottery fragments evaluated in this paper. The museum has a sack of 19 ceramic fragments with the date of 1999 probably from this former acquaintance. In October 20121 held a short ground survey with István Koncz to assess the situation of the site and to identify the finding place of the bust and silver fitting. During this manoeuvre we had found diggings from unidentified illegal metal detectorists. On the 21st of February, 2013 we held a four-hour metal detector survey with Agnes Király and Csaba Lakatos using two instruments in the same time. We started at the finding place of the bust heading to the West then finished on the south-western part of the site and river terrace. We have found altogether 52 metal objects, the majority of which was discovered at the southwestern part of the site (Fig. 1). We have collected ceramic sherds from the Roman and Migration Period near the place where the bust had been discovered without any metal object. In the contrary most of the metal objects were revealed near the finding place of the silver fitting on the south-western part of the site. On the 16th of December, 2014 we carried out geophysical survey on the south-western part of the site (1.8 ha) and around the location of the bust’s discovery (0.9 ha), which was almost 3 hectares altogether (Fig. 9). For the investigation we used magnetometer system SENSYS MAGNETO® MXPDA with vertical arranged fluxgate sensors. The distance between probes was 50 cm, while the sampling distance along the array was 10 cm. Together with this measurement we made metal detector survey within the geophysical sections too. Unfortunately we have only detected a part of the area, therefore the results of this may be specified in a later article. FINDINGS FROM THE ROMAN AND EARLY MIGRATION PERIOD The site itself is very large, but the scattering artefacts from the Roman Age do not cover its entire area. Through field research carried out until now we could more accurately delimit the territorial scope of the deposits of epochs. On the western and northwestern part of the site Neolithic Bükk culture and Copper Age Bodrogkeresztúr culture artefacts were found. At the south-western corner of the site Roman and Early Migration Period metal objects came to light, with the same kind of items from the Avarian and the Hungarian Conquest Period in addition to the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Late Migration Period ceramic sherds. From the centre of the site, we managed to collect Middle and Late Bronze Age and some Árpádian Age (10—13. c.) artefacts. Near the location of the bust and to the east, all the way to the railroad tracks, a large number of Roman and Hun Age ceramic fragments were collected. Near the railroad tracks and to the east of them a large number of Neolithic artefacts call our attention to another settlement from this epoch. In the following I point out some Roman and Early Migration Period finds from the archaeological site with the unconcealed intention to raise awareness of the Egres-dűlő and to be a basis for future researches. METAL OBJECTS 7. Bacchus bust Among the objects turned up in Borsodszirák— Egres-dűlő the most interesting is surely a bronze so-called Bacchus bust, which has drawn attention to the site (Fig 3. 1). There is no possible doubt that it could be an accessory of a Roman so-called tripod or quadripod. The height of the statue is 8.8 cm, and there are brown corrosion marks on its surface. The figure is wearing a knotted nebrist (buckskin) on the left shoulder, its herbal wreath hair style is grapes-shaped on both sides. The eyes of the statue are silver. It is joint to its 2 x 2.8 cm, profiled, rectangular basis by a 1.9 cm deep, round hole measuring 1.1 cm over (Fig. 3. 1). A strong hook starts on its rear directly above the profiled base, and extends to 3.2 cm; its square transect is 1.2 cm, 3.5 cm high. Roman tripods and quadripods have been first studied by Ute Klatt, and based on her paper the bust of Borsodszirák belongs to the VC type four- foots (Ki.att 1995, 368—369). She has counted three exemplars; one from Ephesus, one from Tvärditza and one from Zakrzew/Sackrau 1886. I. grave (Klatt 1995, 467-469). Later this type of object has been investigated by Péter Prohászka in connection with our area apropos of the findings of Ostrovany/Osztrópataka (Prohászka 2004, 67—69). Within the territory of the Barbaricum tripods and quadripods were found only in relation to elite burials so far (Musov, Gommern, Ostrovany/Osztrópatak, Zakrzew/Sackrau 1886 Grave I, Stráze/Strázsa Grave II), which can be dated to the second half of the first century and the first half of the third century A. D. (Prohászka 2004, 69). I presume that the best parallel for the one of Borsodszirák is from Zakrzew/Sackrau, which Klatt dated to the 2nd century A. D. (Ki.att I
