Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 1. – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1960)
Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Thomas Edit, B.: Medaillion Applications on Pannonian Vessels. I, 1960. p. 71–76. XLII–XLIII.
71 MEDALLION APPLICATIONS ON PANNONIAN VESSELS (SASSANID DECORATIVE ELEMENTS IN PANNONIAN POTTERY) On the occasion of reviewing a hitherto unpublished medallion application on a vessel unearthed at Martonvásár-Szentlászlópuszita, in the following lines I intend to summarize the Pannonian instances of these curious ornaments, furnishing some recent data as to the origin of this decorative device and fixing the date of its production between narrower limits. A. Alföldi was the first to collect the crustullum forms, moulds, embossed disks, together with some pieces serving as ornaments of vessels, in his dissertation. 1 — Later on he completed this collection 2 and he made several pieces derived from Pannonian sites known which show a close relationship to the Szentlászlópuszta medallion. 3 — In 1945 A. Alföldi returned to his previous subject, supplementing both his former publications with the .recently uncovered material. 4 It is in this latter study that we meet a medallion, ornamenting a vessel, and derived frc-m the Pannonian circle, to be dealt with in the following. The Martonvásár-Szentlászlópusizta disk does not figure in the mentioned 1 comprehensive study. This piece gives us a chance to distinguish this group, so interesting in the framework of pottery, from the crustullum forms. Such medallion applications, produced in various Pannonian workshops in an identical spirit, are characterized by the frame made up of a strioig of pearls, and the stylization of both the animals portrayed in the design and the floral ornament representig the surroundings. Whereas we may discern a certain decorative bent in shaping the animal pictures, the surroundings are just hinted at almost schematically. The Pannonian positive medallions ornamentig vessels, or negative moulds used for the production of such, belonging to this circle and being within our reach, are the following: 1. The piece inv. no. 1323 in the István Király Museum at Székesfehérvár (Pl. XLII, 1), an embossed earthen disk of grey material with black polish, applied to a vessel, was uncovered at Szentlászlópuszta, belonging to the village Martanvásár, in 1910. Its diameter is 8.7 cm, its thickness 1.5 cm. The reverse of the medallion is concave, having horizontal flanges, produced by the fingers in course of rotation. On the obverse we see a cock, surrounded by a 1 A. ALFÖLDI, Arch. Ért. Зв (1918—19) 1—. with some pictures. 2 A. ALFÖLDI, LA 1 (1938) 1— with many pictures. 8 Ibid. 11, Pl. LXXI, no. 4, the site is Brigetio; no. 6, the site is Aquincum. border of single pearls, raising its head, with one palm branch each in its front and back. The shaping of the animal reveals a bent to stylizing, while the decorative portrayal of the tail-feathers and the wings, together with delineation of the neck and the head, reflect an artful ornamental ability. 2. The following piece which ought to be preserved in the Székesfehérvár Museum according to the statement of A. Alföldi, on the testimony of the inventories has never belonged to the collection of this museum. So unfortunately we were unable to find it 5 and we cannot utilize it except as a piece of Pannonian origin, derived from an unknown site. The measures, the colour and other data of the mould, serving for the production of a medallion, are unknown. Ot the obverse (PI. XLII, 2) we see a bird, perhaps a peafowl or a cock, stepping to the left, with a fir-cone below and a berried fruit before it; we notice the same fruit behind the back of the animal and beside a large leaf, and also scattered at more places in the circular field. The bearing of the bird, the neck bent strongly backwards, the especially finely depicted wing coverts are doing credit to the exquisite decorative gift of the manufacturing master. 3. In 1933 I. Paulovics unearthed in the so-called Gerhát potter's settlement of Brigetio among others a mould, serving for the production of a disk applied to a vessel, preserved in the Hungarian National Museum. A. Alföldi publishes the modern positive disk cast from the mould, 6 omitting to mention, however, that the original is a negative specimen, belonging originally to the equipment of negative patterns of a pottery. The largest diameter of the Brigetio medallion, ornamenting a vessel (inv. no. 4 [1933] 84, Hungarian National Museum, (PI. XLII, 4) is 10.5 cm, the thickest part of the handy negative form, becoming thinner towards the edge, is 2.5 cm. The diameter of the disk which may be produced with the help of the mould is 7 cm in its wet condition before burning. The depth of the negative, or the thickness of the disk emerging from it respectively, may have been about 0.7 cm. The raw negative earthen form is pink colour, showing a grey inside on the breaking surface, where the clay has been the thickest. On the medallion the master depicted a dog, running to the right, raising its head, probably hunting, bordered by a string of pearls. The trees represented by leaves behind the animal and the strongly schematized grass below it are just marking the surroundings, the landscape of woords and meadows. Owing to the defect of the mould the frame of pearls is interrupted in a section, so the design is * A. ALFÖLDI, FA 5 (19415)) 6G-. 5 We borrowed the photograph of the object from op. cit. of A. Alföldi (p. 6®, PI. П, fig 3), where the picture was made after covering the edge of the negative form, 6 A. ALFÖLDI, LA 1 (1938) 11, PI. LXXI, ПО. 4.
