Szolyák Péter - Csengeri Piroska (szerk.): A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 56. (Miskolc, 2017)
Régészet - Soós, Eszter et al.: Settlement and graves from Hernádvécse (NE-Hungary) in the 5th century AD: relation of living space and burial place in the Hun Period
68 Soós, Eszter—Bárány, Annamária—Köhler, Kitti—Pusztai, Tamás and jugs with faceted surface (Gindele 2010,142, Abb. 16-17, Abb 19-20, Abb. 25, 6, 8). A dozen semi-subterranean buildings — some of them the Eckpfostenhaus type — were excavated in Sajószentpéter-Vasúti őrház dated to period D2—D3 based on a Sartemo-type glass cup and a brooch of the Léva-Prse type. The forms of the grainy pots and bowls were different from the ceramic material of Hernádvécse, in contrary to the jugs with smoothed-in decoration which are quite similar (Tóth 2013,128, V. t. 14, VIII. t. 1, X. t. 7, 9, XII. t. 1, XVI. T. 3, XXXI. T. 6). The site Onga—Teknő lapos is dated to the middle third and the second half of the 5th century AD. The grainy pots and bowls found in the semi-subterranean buildings are rather contemporary with the Gepidic ceramic forms. Only the wide biconical bowl with smoothed decoration which could be dated to the middle of the 5th century AD is related to the material of the Hernádvécse settlement (Soós 2014, III. t. 2—3, VIII. t. 4-6). In the recently published sites between Nyíregyháza and Nagykálló, dated to the first and second half of the 5th century AD (Pintye 2016, 111) the unearthed bowl forms (Pintye 2016, PL. XXVI, Pl. XXVII) and the smoothed-in ornaments of the Murga-type jugs (Pintye 2016, Pl. II, 1, Pl. XII, 1) show similarity with Hernádvécse although the typological characteristics of the pots do not match. The groups colonizing the Upper Tisza Region in the 5th century AD had adapted differently to the fashion of the time because of their distinct origin and traditions. The ceramics were manufactured locally in the settlements like in Hernádvécse or Lazuri, therefore unique forms were produced in each site. The origin of the founders of the Hernádvécse settlement could be traced back to the Säntana de Murej—Chernyakhov culture. It is noteworthy that beside the specific building type mentioned above, the ceramic material from Hernádvécse does not show direct relationship with the vessel forms of the Santana de Murej culture (KOröSFői 2011, 116—125, Table 4—7, Table 12—18), that is, typical late Roman Age wheel-turned forms. The possible antecedents of the biconical bowls and grainy pots had appeared only in cemeteries in the late phase of the culture as Pälatca (Hica-Cämpeanu 1976, 33, Abb. 7-8), Fintinele-Rit (Marinescu-Gaiu 1989, Abb. 5—7) or Santana de Murej (Kovács 1912, 268, 20. kép, 33. kép, 77. kép). In the Hernádvécse site, pottery, that was quickly adapted to the fashion of the era, shows similar transformation as in the contemporaneous sites. A certain degree of transformation (or in some cases called Romanization) can also be observed in case of the burials (Tejral 2000, 9; Tejral 2016,135—136), which means that no direct analogy can be found for any artefacts unearthed west of the ‘conventional’ territory of the Chernyakhov culture. Hungarian research had already identified newcomers from the territory of the Säntana de Murej—Chernyakhov culture in the Upper Tisza Region (Istvánovits 1993, 100-103; Istvánovits-Kulcsár 1999, 76). The bestknown example is the cemetery of Tiszadob—Sziget, but the newly excavated burials from Sajószentpéter also show Chernyakhov characteristics (RAcz 2016, 303). It is interesting that no direct connection is observable between the ceramic material of the settlements and the grave goods of the Tiszadob-type cemeteries. Both cultural and chronological reasons may be in the background of this phenomenon. The upper chronological border of the cemetery horizon cannot be exactly defined yet. As opposed to the earlier opinions, ’Iranian’ elements included artefacts which can be dated to the turn of the 4th—5th centuries, while dress items of ‘German’ characters can rather be dated to the middle of the 5th century AD (Istvánovits-Kulcsár 1999; Kiss 2015b, 48-49). 3.2. THE RELATION OF LIVING SPACE AND BURIAL PLACE IN THE HUNNIC PERIOD At the Hernádvécse site the burials were unearthed on the edge of the settlement but between the settlement features. They can be defined as burials inside the settlement area or a custom where the funerary area (RAcz 2016, 304; Kiss 2017, 14, 32—36) was the same as the residence area of the community. The topographic relation of the Hunnic period settlements and burials is poorly researched due to of the difficulties related to settlement chronology. In the absence of well-datable metal artefacts, the ceramic material of the sites can be dated from the end of the 4th to the second half of the 5th century AD (Bocsi et al. 2016, 105—106). It constitutes a further difficulty that certain major ceramic types such as vessels with spout or jugs with faceted surface do not occur in all settlements because of the internal development of the pottery. The changes typical to the ceramic material in the period D2—D3 cannot be observed in each site.24 24 The site 33 in Nyíregyháza-Oros a Hunnic period saddle plate was unearthed in an otherwise featureless late Sarmatian settlement dated to the 3rd-5th centuries AD (IstvAnovits-Kulcsár 2014, 269—271, Fig. 2—13). Without the outstanding artefact the ceramic material from the single pits cannot be dated to the classical Hunnic period.
