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.

iscent of the earliest Tisza culture (mainly flower pot-shaped vessels

25

) at Tordos reveals that the settlement survived until the very end of Vinca B2, and that it may have ceased at a time when the Csóka mound (Tűzköves) was founded

30 and when the painted pottery of Petresti and later of Erősd appeared in the eastern part of Transylvania. (Late Bükk fragments are found also at Erősd itself

37

). Those forms and fragments of vessels from Tordos, or their ornaments, which have incised signs, are not easily datable. A single vessel allows of an almost certain dating, as it belongs to the period Vinca A. Its ornament is parallel with the classical period of the Linear Pattern Pottery of the Great Plain, being coeval with period Vinca A (A20, 8).

38 Also a bowl with a lower part shaped as an inverted truncated cone and an upper part of a cylindrical form

39

, bearing a very simple mark on the bottom (Al, 12), may be dated probably to period Vinca A. A very interesting motive (A29, 3) is scratched into the bottom of a quite low, disk-pedestalled fragment of a bowl. This shape may perhaps be assigned to the end of period Vinca A. Several Tordos signs are found on vessels which were red-slipped. If the shape of the vessels does not exclude it, these red-slipped vessels may belong either to period Vinca A, or to the first half of period Vinca В (A14, 1, A14, 15, A19, 1). Unfortunately the data relating to the signs which may be dated to the periods Vinca —Tordos A and Bl are but partly and indirectly supported by the excavation material of Roska, since in the finds uncovered by him

40 no scratched signs have occurred. Nevertheless, the results of surface IV are interesting for us. According to Roska's statement the red-slipped ware is missing in the material of the upper level at Nándorválya (though one finds the stroked spaces between two incised lines), but the lower level at Tordos (at least on surface IV) is characterized generally by the "flesh-coloured" slipped ware. (Naturally this difference is not necessarily a chronological one between the lower Tordos and the upper Nándorválya levels; it may also be due to factors of territorial extension.) Further, the rims are often black coloured (not painted). Among the recessed ornaments some are produced by the impression of a tubular bone (cp. the manner of production of some Tartaria signs!

41

). The finds of the lower level of the surface IV at Tordos

42 show at any rate more relation to the very beginning of period Vinca Bl than to A; in the first place the burnished-rippled decoration and the incised linear ornament of one fragment. It is apparent that Roska's information is correct in this case: owing to its large extension the life of the settlement was not continous in all parts: thus surface IV was not settled in the earliest Vinca —Tordos time, but only started from the latest Vinca — Tordos A. The middle level of surface IV presents essentially the 35 TZsGy. LXXXVI. t. 4, LXXXVII. t. 4, XCII. t. 12, XCIII.t. 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12 etc. :f

e J. BANNER: Acta Arch. Hung. 12 (1960) 1 -56. 37 N. KALICZ-J. MAKKAY: VKM, in print. 38 See the analogies in N. KALICZ-J. MAKKAY: VKM, in print. 39 V» MILOJCIC: Choronologie, 72 seq. 40 TZsGy. 28-35. 41 According to A. FALKENSTEIN: Germania 43 (1965) 269 some Tärtaria signs may have been impressed by a tubular bone instrument. « Especially TZsGy. Abb. 18. same finds

43 as the lower one ; consequently we may date it to the Bl period. As the burnished-rippled decoration becomes ever more frequent,

44 we prefer the second half of period Bl. In the upper level of surface IV the appearance of brownish-red painting (such as visible on the painted fragments gathered by Zsófia Torma!) marks the presence of the Petresti painting, and thus the period Vinca — Tordos B2. In all probability the settlement existed till the very end of B2, becoming uninhabited at this time. This means that at the same time the Vinca culture has left the interior of Transylvania, at the very moment when copper had become important for its own needs as well. The simultaneous appearance of the Erősd pottery reveals that the central and eastern areas of Transylvania were linked henceforth to the East European Cucuteni — Tripolje culture instead of the Central European Vinca. The above data have proved that incised signs had already appeared on the red-slipped ware, simultaneously with the lower and middle Tordos level of Roska. This is an unequivocal proof that the Vinca culture had applied pottery signs at the end of period A at the latest and in Bl generally. However, the great majority of the Tordos signs are found on pottery of a type which cannot be restricted to periods A —Bl; in fact it may be dated rather to B2. At any rate the incised-recessed decoration, most suitable for the production technique of the signs (scratching), is a general feature of period Bl —2. But it is clear that not a single Tordos pottery sign may be dated even to the very beginning of the Vinca

—Plocnik phase, since the settlement did not exist any more at this period. This fact alone is a proof that the dating of the Tartaria tablets to period Vinca В (probably the end of Bl or the very beginning of B2) is absolutely certain and unassailable. We shall show later that there are numerous such connections between the pictographs of the Tartaria tablets and the Tordos pottery signs which are possible only in the case of, at least partial chronological coincidence and of a common descent. At any rate we may sketch the chronological parallels between the Tordos and the Tartaria levels as follows. (See p. 13.) An essentially certain synchronization is made possible by the fact that the sherds of the Middle and Late Period (Tiszadob and Bükk Pottery) of the Linear Pottery Culture have come to light at Tordos and Tärtaria (Bükk sherds even at Erősd).

45 This is supported by the circumstance that in the Tordos — Petresti stratum and in the preceding Tordos stratum

46 there were the partly typical sherds of the Tiszadob group, somewhat earlier than the Bükk group. As to the fragments with linear ornaments collected at Tordos (in the lower level of surface IV of Roska), they may belong to the classic phase of the Linear Pattern Pottery of the Great Plain, the immediate precursor of the Tiszadob group, so they are contemporaneous with the period Vinca — Tordos A. "TZsGy. Abb. 19 and 20. 44 TZsGy. Abb. 19, 4, 9, 15, Abb. 20, 9. 45 N. KALICZ-J. MAKKAY: VKM, in print. Chronologie. 46 In our judgment, all sherds which were exhibited in the Tärtaria vitrine of the Cluj Historical Museums among the finds of the Tordos and TordosPetresti level are typical finds of the Tiszadob Group, partly earlier than the Bükk ware. 12