Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 10. 1969 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1969)
Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Makkay János: The Late Neolithic Tordos Group of Sign. X, 1969. p. 9–49. t. I–IV.
and South-Eastern Europe, had not reached a level on which the eventually suspected impacts and connections, especially as regards the most diffcult problems pertaining to the history of writing, could be treated with success. One may understand, consequently, that instead of suggesting and investigating Near Eastern connections, only Western European links were looked for in the case of the Chalcolithic scratched marks, found at several sites of the Roumanian Cucuteni culture. 24 At the same time very good parallels have been demonstrated between the painted figures (animals) of the same Cucuteni culture and prehistoric patterns in Iran (Susa, Tepe Giyan). 25 Finally the basis for the investigation of Near Eastern analogies, taken in a wider sense, has been created by the new system delineated by V. G. Childe between the two World Wars and by his special studies on the Neolithic in South East Europe. 26 The first detailed treatment of these parallels is due to F. Schachermeyr. 21 Although his results and proposals need revision or in some instances a detailed proof, 28 the "Vorderasiatische Kulturtrift", a historical idea introduced by him and its general corollaries are still valid in our day. Several typical details of the connections between the Near East-Anatolia and South-East Europe in the fourth and third millennia are" more or less accepted by now, especially as regards the material of the Vinca culture. The observation is also familiar to us that the signs incised on vessels, weights and other objects, so numerous in this culture, appear as a result of a series of impacts from the South East. Their concrete and detailed analysis has nevertheless not been made so far. It is mainly the discovery and the divergent valuation of the Tärtäria tablets that made this task urgent. 29 In what follows therefore we shall endeavour to systematize the signs found so far in the Vinca — Tordos and the Vinca — Plocnik assemblages and in the contemrorary and mostly connected South-East European cultures, available to us and comprised under the general term of "the Tordos late Neolithic sign group." We shall try to compare them with the Mesopotamian pictographs, starting from the connections of the Tärtäria tablets. It is the main characteristic of the usually symbolical signs of a rectilinear or curved design that they cannot be regarded as customary elements of vessel decoration. In most cases their position is sufficient to show that they are independent of the ornament : they are often placed on the bottoms of the vessels and they stand usually alone or in a prominent position. There are very few of them which have a picturelike character, on which one may recognise or suppose the model of the portraiture (a living being or object etc.). The design is extremely simplified in most cases. They occur on vessels, idols, earthen weights, spindle whorls and other objects, they are incised, impressed or embossed, and very rarely scratched on bone or stone. They have been put on the earthen vessels usually before burning (as they 24 O. TAFRALI: RA 33 (1931) 14-28. 25 V. DUMITRESCU: Notes 1931; ср. R. VULPE: IPEK 1938. 57-65. and later, as regards human portrayals H. DUMITRESCU: Dacia 4 (1960) 31-52. 26 The six consecutive editions of The Dawn of European Civilization between 1925-1957, in the first place. 27 Comprehensively in: Die ältesten Kulturen Griechenlands. (Stuttgart 1955.) 28 D. H. FRENCH: Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology 5 (London 1965) 16. 29 In this connection see our manuscript study on the stratigraphical problems pf the Tärtäria site ! were made by the potter), very rarely after firing (possibly incised by the owner). Since we were unable explicitly to study the signs in the original for our present purpose, our survey is exposed to possible faults. This is mainly so in the case of completing and interpreting the fragmentary signs visible on potsherd, even if they may be clearly distinguished from ornamental elements. Since we deal here generally with pottery signs instead of pictographs, their makers may have scratched most of them roughly and superficially into the clay. We may suppose that numerous existing signs have not been published so far, since it may even be problematical whether one is faced by a sign or not. Their position on the surface of the vessels is very rarely stated. Their measures are hardly known, and we possess no statement on the method of their incision. Also the data for the definition of their chronology are very defective. In our survey we publish signs from 17 sites of the Vinca culture 30 and from 20 of the cultures related to or contemporaneous with it, 31 except for the pictographs of the Tärtäria tablets. Most of the signs are derived from Tordos. This fact, together with the richness of the site in other respects and its nearness to Tärtäria, adds a special importance to the Tordos signs. There is another reason, however, why the Tordos signs are extremely important. Whereas the marks found in the remaining sites of the Vinca culture may be dated expressly to the Plocnik phase or, as at Vinca itself, allow of no exact dating (they may be assigned either to period В or to C), the Tordos settlement gives a better chance for the fixing of the chronology. As we have mentioned above, the life of the Tordos settlement came to an very early end for unknown reasons. Even if we are unable to assign the single marks to the phases of the life of the settlement, the definition of the beginning and the end of the same helps us in defining ths period in which they were made. As we analyze the chronological boundaries of the Tordos settlement, we find that its material doubtless lacks the forms both cf the Körös — Starcevo culture and the Protovinca period. 32 Thus it was founded probably much later than the Vinca tell. Life was begun in period Vinca A in the settlement but whether in its very beginning we are unable to tell. This is made clear by the presence as imports of the characteristic finds of the Early Linear Pottery of the Great Hungarian Plain. 33 As is shown by the occurrence of the finds of the developped (Bükk) phase of the Linear Pottery, the settlement flourished all through the period Vinca B. 34 In our opinion, the end of the settlement is defined by the lack of imported objects of the Tisza culture among the finds: consequently the life of the site did not attain the very beginning of the Vinca — Plocnik period. However, the presence of finds strongly remin30 The sites are the following: Tordos, Banjica, Vinca, Obrez, Gornja Tuzla, Koraj, Predionica, Jablanica, Zorlentul Mare, Nándorválya, Kormandin, Gradac, Gornji Grad, Pljosna Stijena, Gomolava, Ledina, Grabovac. 31 The sites are the following: Bunesti, Cosesti (Romania), Hódmezővásárhely— Kpkény domb, Csóka— Сока—Tűzköves, Újtikos—Tikosdomb, Vidra, Grapceva Spilja, Neszmély—Tekerespatak, Kenézlő —Fazekaszug, Pusztaistvánháza, Tiszaug — Kisréti part, Aradac, Szentes—Jaksorpart, Szentes —Megyeháza, Szentes—Nagy hegy, Szentes— Ilonapart, Bodrogkeresztúr, Hódmezővásárhely —Kotacpart, Szelevény, Sukoró—Tóradülő. 32 See our manuscript study on the Protovinêa problem and finds! Cp. J. MAKKAY: Orientalia 37 (Roma 1968) 281 seqq. and Acta Arch. Hung. 21 (1969) 13 seqq. 33 TZsGy. CX t. 5, CXI t. 2, 3, 4. etc. N. VLASSA, SCIV 10. (Bucuresti 1959) 239, Fig. 1 ; M. ROSKA, Dolgozatok 12 (Szeged 1936) Fig. 1. a* N. KALICZ-J. MAKKAY; VKM, in print. И
