Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. A Szent István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 34. 2004 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (2005)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Zalai-Gaál, István: New evidence for the Cattle cult in the Neolithic of Central Europe. XXXIV. p. 7–40. T. I–XVII.

309; 1972, 155). Another striking feature is that the skeletal parts of different animal species usually lay in the same spot in the grave, separate from the other grave goods (Bognár-Kutzián 1963, 137). Most male burials were rather lavishly equipped, but Grave 52 surpassed them all: this burial contained the skeleton of a roughly 25 years old man, a dog skeleton, a boar mandible, an aurochs scapula, a cattle metatarsal, deer antlers and sheep bones, i.e. the remains of both domestic and game animals. The grave goods included nine vessels, seven stone and obsidian blades and an antler axe. Grave 42, another male burial, yielded an aurochs scapula, a dog skeleton, deer antler and a pig mandible, as well as four clay vessels and a silex artefact. Deposited in Grave 35, another male burial, were the burials of two small children, a polisher carved from a cattle metatarsal and two unworked tarsals, a pig mandible and an antler fragment, together with seven pots, three stone blades and limestone beads. In Grave 38, the burial of a middle aged man, an aurochs tibia lay behind the skull; the burial contained cattle bones and a boar mandible together with two stone blades and seven vessels. Grave 39, a male burial, was furnished with an aurochs scapula and the „usual" boar mandible, six vessels, two stone blades and a copper bead. Grave goods typical for high status males were found in Grave 44: a copper and a stone blade, an obsidian core, a horse tooth, and a cattle humerus. Only three vessels were deposited in this burial. Even though Grave 29 did not contain a human skeleton and can thus be regarded as a cenotaph, it contained a combination of the animal bones (aurochs scapula, cattle metatarsal and wild boar mandible) typical for male burials, as well as two copper rings and six vessels. Grave 33 was a female burial into which seven vessels, a copper ring, a necklace strung of copper and limestone beads, and marble beads had been deposited. The cattle bones were placed in a pedestalled vessel (Bognár-Kutzián 1963, 77-113). A 268 cm deep pit filled with cattle bones was uncovered near the skull in the eastern half of Grave 82, a 130 cm deep burial in the Deszk A cemetery (Foltiny 1941, 88; Bognár-Kutzián 1972, 22). A similar phenomenon was observed in Grave 13, which was similarly 130 cm deep: a 268 cm deep pit containing many cattle bones was found by the grave's eastern wall (Bognár-Kutzián 1972, 26). The cattle bones lay near the skull in Grave 7, although the species determination is uncertain (BognárKutzián 1972, 24). A polisher carved from cattle bone was deposited in Grave 3 of the Deszk В cemetery (Bognár-Kutzián 1972, 135, Pl. 34. 6). Ida Bognár-Kutzián lists bovine remains from various settlements: five of these yielded aurochs bones, three sites yielded cattle bones. Aurochs and cattle remains occurred jointly at three of these sites and in a few cases she mentions other bovine species, such as bison and buffalo (Bognár-Kutzián 1972, 162). Altogether 124 graves of the Middle Copper Age Bodrogkeresztur culture contained animal bones (of 178 species), but only the zoological remains from sixty-eight burials could be determined. Sheep/goat and pig preceded cattle by 14 per cent (at Tiszapolgár-Basatanya this ratio was 8 per cent). With the exception of the aurochs scapula found in a burial at Magyarhomorog-Kónyadomb and Tiszavalk-Tetes, hunted animals do not occur among the animal bone finds (Vörös 1986; Lichter 2001, 338-339). The bull headed vessel or bull shaped lamp decorated with large, incised spirals from Sitagroi in north-eastern Greece is contemporary with the KodzadermenGumelnita-Karanovo VI complex (Theocharis 1973, Fig. 105; Seferiades 1993, 52; Gimbutas 1989, 266, Fig. 413). Marija Gimbutas assigned the realistically modelled clay bull figurine with exaggeratedly large wide horns from Fafos to the Vinca culture (Gimbutas 1974, 91, Fig. 53). Outstanding among the finds from the Karanovo tell settlement is a solid, schematic bull figurine adorned with punctates (Georgiev 1961, 84). One striking feature of the depictions dating from the Bulgarian Aeneolithic is that they are more naturalistically modelled than their counterparts from the Early and Middle Neolithic, as shown by the life-like four-footed bull figurines from Gradesnica (Nikolov 1970, Obr. 15. b, v, d, e; 1974, Kat. Nr: 71, 102), Kremenik (Georgiev et al. 1986, 141, Abb. 27a-b), Zaminec (Nikolov 1965, Kat. Nr. 65), Ovôarovo (Todorova 1976, Obr. 2), Kodzadermen (Radunőeva 1971, Obr. 1), and even more so by the pieces from Goljamo Delôevo (Todorova et al. 1975, 184 and 197, Tab. 70. 3, Tab. 73. 3, Tab. 78. 6, Tab. 79. 8, Tab. 109. 9=Tab. 110. 12) and Vinica (Radunceva 1976b, Obr. 29. 2=Raduntscheva 1976a, 93, Abb. 110). The latter figurine was recovered from a house, similarly to the zoomorphic vessel published from the Goljam Izvor tell settlement (Gaul 1948, Taf. 62. 6). Simple Y shaped pieces, perhaps small horns of consecration, are known from Ruse and Vinőa (Gimbutas 1974, 93, Fig. 49. 1-3). During his examination of the animal bones from the Karanovo VI layer of the Drama settlement, which showed a 95 per cent dominance of domestic species and a predominance of cattle, Sándor Bökönyi noted traces of a deformation on cattle horns indicating that these animals had been used for traction (Lichardus et al. 1996, 29). Small clay objects resembling bull horns were quite numerous among the finds. The perforations on them suggests that they had been worn as pendants (Lichardus et al. 1996, 26, Abb. 9. 2-4). One remarkable find is a fourfooted vessel with a horned animal head and a human mask, whose nose was perforated (Macht, Herrschaft und Gold 1988, Abb. 195; Fol et al. 1989, Taf. 16. 1). The cattle cult and its symbols have been reviewed in detail in light of the Early Copper Age finds from Varna. The most important finds in this respect are the long horned bull figures cut from sheet gold (e.g. Ivanov 1978, Abb. 9, Abb. 22; Macht, Herrschaft und Gold 1988, 197, 24