Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 2.-3. 1961-1962 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1963)

Irodalom – Beschprechungen - Makkay János: Recent books on the history of prehistoric religion. Tasks and possibilites of Hungarian research. II–III, 1961–62. p. 199–201.

the religion of Prehistoric man, living in a transitional period, approaching agriculture and settled life, as the sources are missing as to the mentioned areas. Would not the chosen title have excluded the possibility of dealing with finds outside Europe systematically, another solution would have benn availabe As a matter of fact, the transitional or quite early Neolithic customs and finds of Syria, Palestina and the Near East are promising a richer harvest also' for the history of religion than the European ones. Chapter V investigates the problems of ithe Neolithic Age. Under six headings he deals with the religion of five larger European territorial units: the Northern European tribes of hunters and fishermen, the Danubian peasants, the people of the Mediterranean, the circle of the Western European megaliths and the Northern European cultivators. This division according to territories and occupations, or rather the chief occupations, is justified on the whole. But we cannot quite agree with the author when he treats the Northern European data in part under two headings, separated from each other. As we are going to point out below, the categorical division between the Danubian peasants and the Southern Mediterranean people does not hold ground either. To put it exactly, the boundaries of the Danubian region cannot be drawn finally in this manner. It goes without saying that in the circle of Neolithic archaeological material the interest of the author is focussed on Western European finds and the groups showing the most of similitudes with the data of earlier periods, e. g. the peoples of hunters and fishermen. The presentation of Danubian customs and the like is restricted almost exclusively to the Goddess of Fertility and her delineations, together with some beliefs related to animals. On the whole we are missing the comprehensive and comparative analvsis of Neolithic burials, similar to that of the Palaeolithic ones, very much in the book. We shall return to the reasons of these defects later. At the end of the book we find a short summary of the contents, not a schematical repetition however, but a part containing several new ideas. This work represents a great value for the interested students, not on account of its exceedingly rich documentary material in the first place, but as an excellent guide. Each student of a special, narrower subject may add to it the data discovered and the phenomena observed by himself, nay he may improve the statements of the author, if necessary, AS we have said, it is mainly the chanters on the Neolithic Age which are to be completed in this manner. We are not only reviewing E O. James' book after the other because it was published somewhat later, but also because it may be regarded as a continuation. J. Maringer closes his investigation with the treatment of the earliest Neolithic finds, E. O. James widens his survey at this point. His arrangement differs from that of the former. He deals with the burial in a coherent part, grouped round the Palaeolithic, the Near Eastern Neolithic burials and the Western megaliths It is important that he extends his survey and classification as far as the finds of the Far East; to the archaeological material of territories which are almost beyond the reach of European research on the whole, since the pertinent publications are hardly avaiable. The analysis of the types of graves is followed by a repeated presentation of burial rites, grouped around cremation, inhumation and mummification. Naturally the part dealing with the cremation burial of the European Bronze Age betrays that this is no special subject of the author. The mentioned statements are completed by the treatment of customs regarding ithe cult of the dead and the Other World. Beginning with the Neolithic Age, however, we are missing the Central European finds and customs very much; not only their more intensive knowledge but also their perusal. In chapter VI we are led to the evolution of the female goddess essentialy. Though in a cauitious form, E. O. James emphasizes the near affinity of the Upper Palaeolithic and Early Neolithic female figurines. He traces the extension of the belief of the Neolithic-Chalkolithic Mother Goddess as far as the Indus Valley on one hand, and the Mediterranean region on the other. This provides South

—East European research with an excellent opportunity ю compare its finds with those of the Near East successfully. It is regrettable that. E. O. James does not know this South-East European archaeological material either, although it is surpassing in richness the finds of Crete or the Archipelago in the Neolithic and Chalkolithic periods! Chapter VII deals with the Upper Palaeolithic hunting rites and the data of the hunters' magic, together with the prehistoric and ancient Near Eastern fertility cults comprehensively. In connection with the latter we may witness and observe the evolution of the male Chief Good and his rise to power, in the world of beliefs naturally. The author explains this problem in Chapter VIII in detail, presenting the essence and the varieties of the belief in a Heaven-God. Finally we read a concise summary of the author's statements. The undoubted significance and virtue of this book lay mainly in the excellent and universally versed acquaintance of the author with the archaeological material of the Near East and the Mediterranean regions, the preserved works of the ancient authors and also the earliest written sources. It must be regarded as a sigrlficaint step in the research of the history of religion that the writer's horizon spans the manifold questions of the entire Mediterranean as a unity. Needless to say, this is of an enormous chronological and historical significance beside the narrower orbit of the results in the history of religion. In course of our review we have alluded to one of the most obvious deficiencies of both works, to wit: the harsh treatment of Central and South-East European finds, at more than one occasion. Emphasizing this repeatedly, we are not led by some sort of narrow local chauvinism. Without the intensive knowledge of the Neolithic and Copper Age finds of Bulgaria, Greece, Yougoslavia, Rumania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Southern Russia, any comprehensive work dealing with prehistoric religion of Europe is bound to remain imperfect. This deficiency is by no means insignificant. It is evident even without many words that the intensive influences of Near Eastern sociétés, producing the occupation of agriculture were received almost first-hand at the beginning, and with ever more mediation later by the enumerated areas, furthering these influence towards the interior areas of Europe. The significance of the two books, first of all E. O. James's, lies in the very fact that they are following several threads as far as the South-East European territories, giving an impetus also to local research thereby. They are not following the connections farther nevertheless, although not from their own fault in the main. That is to say, Central European 200