Balogh Csilla – P. Fischl Klára: Felgyő, Ürmös-tanya. A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Monumenta Archeologica 1. (Szeged, 2010)

The Excavations at Felgyő (1955-1977)

24 BALOGH Csilla - P. FISCHL Klára 1970. While a description of the Sarmatian burials and Árpádian Age settlement uncovered in the trenches opened by the Ürmös-tanya site will be presented elsewhere, the graphic documentation of these locations is included in this volume for the reasons outlined in the above. Several nearby sites were inspected and field surveys were also conducted in adjacent areas during the time of the successive excavation campaigns. An account of these activities appears after the description of each campaign. The surviving documentation is rather patchy: the documents of the 1955-1956, 1966 and 1969-1970 campaigns are altogether lacking, while the documentation of the 1972 and 1974 campaigns is incomplete. It is our hope that additional documents will be discovered in the future, which will add to our knowledge of the excavations at Felgyő, while the material published in this volume will no doubt ease the assessment of any future documents. The first excavations at Felgyő were conducted by János Lajos, a local teacher, and László Tari, a physician: several graves came to light in 1942 at the Csizmadia farmstead during vine cultivation. Lajos excavated the graves and notified the Department of Archaeology of Szeged University. A rescue excavation was conducted by Mihály Párducz, who uncovered an additional six burials, bringing the total number of graves to forty-five: two Pre-Scythian, three Sarmatian and forty Árpádian Age burials (PÁRDUCZ 1942; PÁRDUCZ 1946).

1 Júlia Kovalovszki surveyed the broader area sometime before 1954 and published the archaeologically relevant information (KOVALOVSZKI 1957). In addition to describing the Csizmadia-tanya site," she mentions another site near the Felgyő manorial centre where a large Bronze Age urn had come to light/ She also collected Árpádian Age finds (fragments of clay cauldrons and pottery sherds decorated with bundles of wavy lines) by Geda-halom, a Copper Age kurgan. In her opinion, the settlement was located slightly farther to the mound's east, where Sarmatian pottery fragments lay scattered on the surface. She identified the remains of a brick building on top of the mound and noted that the Early Árpádian Age cemetery lay 200-300 m north of the mound, namely the burial ground at the Csizmadia-tanya site (KOVALOVSZKI 1957, 31. 49, 69-71). The Árpádian Age settlement could be identified with Deucha, a village mentioned in the charter of incorporation of Garamszentbenedek Abbey. Kovalovszki believed that the location of the village could be associated with the proximity of the Bold ferry and the need for its control (Fig. 4) because the double-edged sword found in the Geda-halom (Csizmadia-tanya) cemetery could be interpreted as a reflection of King Stephen's policy of ensuring the royal control of ferries and fording places (KOVALOVSZKI 1957,31). A total of 312 graves (240 inhumation and 72 inurned burials) were uncovered at the Ürmös-tanya site between 1960 and 1977 in the course of the excavations directed by László (Fig. 43). The five Sarmatian burials (Graves 24, 53, 238, 239 and 240; Fig. 41) will be described and published elsewhere. The inhumation graves included fourteen crouched burials (Graves 14, 28, 33, 34, 35, 44, 45, 60, 142, 144, 145, 210, 211 and 237) which are treated in the chapter on the Bronze Age finds (P. FlSCHL-GUBA 2010, 101-102, Table 1). The crouched inhumation burials, the inurned burials (Figs 44-47) and a few settlement features (Fig. 48) represent the Bronze Age occupation (Fig. 49). 216 graves can be assigned to the Avar cemetery (Figs 51-52); the position of twelve burials (Graves 80-82, 113, 212, 216, 219, 222-224, 227 and 231) was marked by an arrow on the combined cemetery plan. Graves 80, 81 and 82 are indicated by a single soil mark on the combined map because the position of these burials relative to each other is unclear owing to the uncertainties of the field diary, the surviving description and graphic documentation. The contours of provisional grave pits were drawn around the arrows marking the other graves for uniformity. An additional sixteen grave-like features were identified on the surviving plans which in view of their form, orientation and location had probably been part of the Avar cemetery. These had probably been empty grave pits (Fig. 52). Balogh Csilla Móra Ferenc Múzeum H-6720 Szeged, Roosevelt tér 1-3. E-mail: cs_balogh@mfm. u-szeged. hu P. Fischl Klára Miskolci Egyetem Őstörténeti és Régészeti Tanszék H-3515 Miskolc-Egyetemváros E-mail: fklari@gmail.com 1 It seems likely that László excavated another two graves of this cemetery in 1957. A brief excavation was again conducted on the site in 1994 when the apothecary was built: János Ormándy uncovered a Sarmatian female burial lying beside the house of Mrs. Mihály Nyilas (ORMÁNDY 1996). The one-time Csizmadia farmstead was by this time called Kossuth Street. Yet another three west to east oriented burials came to light in spring 2001 on Mrs Mihály Nyilas's plot. The rescue excavation conducted by Csaba Szalontai brought to light fifteen Árpádian Age graves and another Sarmatian burial (MFM Archaeological Archives, inv. no. 3322-2001). The latter was published by Gábor Sz. Wilhelm (SZ. WILHELM 2003). It seems likely that the Sarmatian burial discovered in 1992 was part of the same cemetery (MFM Archaeological Archives, inv. no. 2122-98). 2 The site was specified as Geda-halom owing to the proximity of the two (KOVALOVSZKI 1957, 69). 3 This vessel is probably identical with the Bronze Age urn inventoried under no. 54.202.1 in the collection of the Koszta József Museum in Szentes. The urn was presented to the museum by János Ürmös, who specified its findspot as the manorial centre of Felgyő.