Wolf Mária: A borsodi földvár. Egy államalapítás kori megyeszékhelyünk kutatása - Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén megye régészeti emlékei 10. (Budapest - Miskolc - Szeged, 2019)
Irodalom- és rövidítésjegyzék
385 facts of Hungarian settlements dating to the 10lh century. A single example dated to the 10th-11th century based on its form and decoration, primarily its etched wavy line ornament, is insufficient evidence. At present, we have no concrete proof that the clay cauldrons so popular and ubiquitous in Árpád-Age Hungary were used during the 10th-11th centuries. In light of the above, it is extremely questionable whether clay cauldrons can be linked to the life style of Conquest-Period Hungarians. Recent research makes it clear that, of the lands occupied by 10lh-century Hungarians, the very region where the most lavish Conquest-Period cemeteries have been found, the Upper Tisza region, has yielded very few cauldrons. Not one cauldron fragment is known from Bodrogköz, the floodplain of the Bodrog and Tisza rivers. Because of its geographical features, however, this area would have been ideally suited to a semi-nomadic lifestyle. The situation was similar in Rétköz, which would have provided wide open spaces for livestock herding. In other words, cauldrons were not found in precisely those areas, dating to precisely those periods, in which we would expect Hungarians, based on our present knowledge of history and archaeology, to have lived a special, semi-nomadic lifestyle. Furthermore, we should consider the upsurge in the number of cauldron finds dating to the 12th century, with cauldron use becoming common in the 12th-13th centuries. Therefore, we cannot support in any way the notion that the tradition of cauldron-making was brought by Hungarians from their home in Levedia in the Don River region, where they adapted a semi-settled, semi-nomadic lifestyle that entailed use of a cauldron from the Saltovo culture in the 8th-9th centuries. The mere fact that, during the Árpád Age, cauldrons were used not only in villages but also in royal courts, towns and cloisters, in other words in every sort of settlement during this period, contradicts the notion that this vessel was connected with a certain lifestyle. Recent research has defined a group of early settlements that produced vessels with forms, decoration and technical standards similar to the Borsod artefacts but which did not include cauldrons. The contents of the ceramic finds, the lack of handmade vessels, baking lids, and wheel-thrown cauldrons, distinguished these settlements from those of both the 8th-9'h-century, late Avar Period and 11й-13л-септгу Árpád Age. Scientific examinations of the Borsod pottery yielded several very interesting results. We saw that fire destroyed the 10lh-century village and left its mark on some of the vessels. The cracks, blisters and deformation suffered by the vessels were not the results of crafting flaws but rather damage caused by the fire. The texture of these burned vessels shows that they were exposed to high temperatures of 900 to 1000 degrees Celsius. The fire quickly died away and the pottery cooled rapidly. This allows us to draw conclusions about the building material used for the houses: it could only be material that quickly caught fire, was able to reach high temperatures in a short period of time, then suddenly turned to ash. Most likely this material was wood. This fits with the image of the village that developed during excavation. The village of Borsod consisted of wood houses on stone foundations or timber houses built directly on the ground. In the houses, we found two ploughshares, two short scythes, spade shoe, millstones, sheep shears and a bell. All of these are tools belonging to the remains of a settled, agricultural community. In addition to ceramic objects and agricultural tools, we found several simple jewellery pieces in the burneddown houses and throughout the area of the village. These consisted of fragments of wire bangles with tapered ends and round cross-sections, a deformed bangle with twisted ends, and two bronze bracelets with tapered ends, one with an oval and the other with a rhombus cross-section. A bronze sheet was folded onto another bronze bracelet. A small wire bangle that tapered at one end and thickened at the other end, with a band ring on it, also came to light as did a bronze band ring, a small, open, pear-shaped ring and six rings ending in an S-shape. In house no. 7, two half-finished bridle cheek pieces were also unearthed. On one of the antler cheek pieces, a pattem consisting of two palmette bundles was engraved on the polished, slightly convex surface. The closest analogy to this is a 10,h-century cheek piece from a settlement in Sály-Lator. Good analogies can be found to a large portion of the Borsod ceramic finds among vessels unearthed from 10th-century graves. Moreover, the form and decoration of the pottery strongly indicate Saltovo traditions. Appearing in large numbers in Borsod were ribbed-neck vessels and fragments that are known to have appeared in the Carpathian Basin with the arrival of the Conquest-Period Hungarians. Dating the agricultural tools is more difficult, as they were mostly of a type that had been in use for a long time. Therefore, they can only be assigned to a broader period, from the 9th to the 11th century. Nevertheless, all the tools found in Borsod have analogies from among 10th-and 1 lth-century grave goods. The jewellery can be dated to the second half of the 10th century. Basing our conclusions on the above, we believe the Borsod settlement was destroyed in the last quarter of the 10th century, in the 970s-80s. This date was corroborated by Carbon-14 test results. The bridle cheek piece with palmette decoration found in house no. 7 is indisputable proof of the ethnicity of the village’s inhabitants. The repeating palmette bundle is one of the most characteristic and easily recognizable decorations found on the archaeological relics, primarily those made of metal, of the Conquest-Period Hungarians. The two half-finished cheek pieces from Borsod (one of which is only in rough form, with the decoration not yet begun) were
