Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 4.-5. 1963-1964 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1965)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Bóna István: The Peoples of Southern Origin of the Early Bronze Age in Hungary I–II. IV–V, 1963–64. p. 17–63. t. I–XVII.

pin. Panpipe-shaped plates, placed as a headdress or a diadem on the head, have come tc light from graves 2 and 13, spectacle-shaped spirals of a similar destination from grave 6, Four graves (1, 2, 6, 13) yielded bone pins. Necklaces are usually composite ones, consisting of teeth, shells, snails (graves 1, 2, 7, 13) and green fayence beads (graves 2, 7). Törökkanizsa — Kaniza (former Torontál county, Yougosíavia, Vojvodina)

30 In 1890 in course of digging a channel the slightly protruding mound called Halászka island, situated on a half acre of the territory called Rét, was cut through. Near the top of the mound workers have uncovered several graves. As they said,

31 all of these contained contracted skeletons with large-size bowls near the pelvis of each. K. Wagner, the leader of the works, kept the grave-furniture of 5 graves more or less together. Grave 1. A youth or a child. Grave-furniture: a bowl; a jug; a bracelet rolled of bronze wire. Grave 2. Grave-furniture: a bowi; a 26 cm long, 0,9 cm wide bronze diadem without decoration ; 2 doubly rolled bronze bracelets, inner diam.

: 7 cm; 2 bronze „Cypriot" pins bent in a semicircle. Grave 3. Grave-furniture: a bowl; a bronze bracelet bent from a doubly rolled wire, inner diam.: 6 cm; a bronze ingot torque with recoiled ends, inner diam.: 14 cm. Grave 4. Grave-furniture : a bowl; a bronze bracelet bent from a quintuply rolled wire; a similar one triply rolled, their diam.: 6 cm: a bronze ingo.t torque with recoiled ends, inner diam.: 13 cm. Grave 5. Grave-furniture : a bowl; a necklace made of snails, beads and 4 pierced animal teeth 2 bronze „Cypriot" pins bent in a semicircle. To these and probably to other devastated graves belonged further: spectacle-shaped bronze spirals (11 complete and 3 fragments, diam.

: to 5 cm); Panpipe-shaped plates (30-40 pieces); and bronze knobs (cca 25 pieces). According to the story of the finder the Panpipe-shaped plates and knobs were situated as a band in one case: 4 plates and 3 knobs followed alternately. The description of the Törökkanizsa graves given by Milleker, though not unconditionally authentic as regards the furniture of the single graves, characterizes the finds reliably. Their further destiny is unknown. Authorized by the 30 E. MILLEKER: Arch. Ért. 13 (1893) 444; id., Prehistorical archaeological finds in Southern Hungary. Supplement. (Temesvár 1895, in Hungarian), 4-5. 31 According to the report of the workers the dead „were sitting in the bowls", which meant the large bowls placed near the pelvises of the contracted skeletons and samashed or ruined by the earth. 32 In the Maros-Tisza region we find larger „Panpipe-shaped" plates of a later date in grave 6 of the cemetery Hungarian National Museum, B. Milleker studied them in the possession of K. Wagner; evidently they remained there. So our evaluation of this important cemetery, conspicuous for its extraordinary riches of bronze, must be based on the report alone. The most important question is, whether the Törökkanizsa graves do really belong to the Pitvaros group or are they the Szőreg type burials of the Perjámos culture. Te latter answer would not be contradicted either by the rite or by a part of the bronze grave-goods, e. g. „Cypriot" pins, bracelets, spectacle-shaped spirals and knobs, or the necklace made of beads and teeth either. But whereas these features are more or less general phenomena of the Early Bronze Age, numerous observations can be made on the Törökkanizsa finds which decidedly contradict the latter possibility and bear out the allocation to the Pitvaros group unequivocally. These are the following: 1. Tfîe graves were lacking the two-handled massive jars, generally characterizing the Szőreg type cemeteries of the Perjámos culture, entirely. These large-size vases of solid material are occurring in 90 per cent, of the graves from the early Szőreg period, nor could they remain unnoticed by the workers here, considering that they observed the large-size bowls of bad material and the jug. On the other hand, the bowl as a grave-good placed near the pelvis is a distinctive feature of the Pitvaros group (thus in 24 graves at Pitvaros), followed by 1 to 3 jugs at rare occasions. So the number and the character of vases as grave-goods links the Törökkanizsa cemetery to the Pitvaros one. 2. The conspicuous riches in metal grave-goods is in a flat contradiction to the Szőreg cemeteries, it is the more typical of Őbéba and Pitvaros. 3. Among the bronze objects the following are unknown or not typical in the Szőreg group but generally found at Pitvaros and öbéba: a) the small-size plates of Panpipe shape,

32 b) the large-size torqueses of a diameter of 14 to 15 cm,

:i:! c) the frequent occurrence of „Cypriot" pins bent in a semicircle,

34 d) the diadem made of a bronze plate, hitherto unknown in the Szőreg period. Owing to the enumerated essential features we have to regard the Törökkanizsa cemetery as one of the Pitvaros group. The cemetery Deszk F. only (unpublished). But these are typical Kisapostag or Vatya products, so they may have come here as commercial ware from along the Danube at the turn of the Early and Middle Bronze Ages. 33 Smaller, massive specimens were occuring in graves 1 and 220 at Szőreg. Cf. I. FOLTINY Dolg. 17 (1941) PI. 19 no. 8; PI. 24. no. 27. 34 A similar one, having a strongly bent form, is known from grave l at Szőreg only. I. FOLTINY; loc. cit. Pl. 19 nos 1-2. 24