A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1968 (Debrecen, 1970)

Mesterházy Károly: The archeological activity of the Déri Museum in the years 1966–68. (A survey of finds)

Károly Mesterházy The Archeological Activity of the Déri Museum in the Years 1966-1968 (A survey of finds) During the years 1966-68 the Déri Museum developed its archeological activity by increasing the number of new find-spots with the explicit purpose of giving a cross-section of archeological material in Hajdú-Bihar county. Excavations were continued at Ártánd, Biharkeresztes, Haj dúhadház, with Szerep added to the previous sites. Owing to various reasons (shortage of scientific personnel and money available), our attention was focused primarily on the investigation of the migration period and medieval times. Most of our prehistoric material comes from terrain inspection and sporadic finds. Our most valuable prehistoric find is a clay coach-model, unearthed at Leányvár, Pocsaj village. Useful information has also been obtained concerning the life of Gepid population in the 4th and 5th centuries. Cemeteries unearthed at Biharkeresztes (Kisfarkasdomb, Nagyfarkasdomb, Toldi baulk), at Ártánd (Lencsésdomb) present the traits and development of Gepid material civilization in an unbroken succession. The possession of this material greatly facilitates the evaluation of Sarmatian finds of the 3rd and 4th centuries. In the course of smaller

—scale rescue excavations two sporadic Avar graves from the earlier period were unearthed at Ártánd and Biharkeresztes. Excavations have been succesfully finished at Artánd, in the cemetery from the Magyar Conquest period, where work started in 1965. Graves from the same period have been uncovered also at Berekböszörmény. Rescue excavations were conducted in loth-llth century settlement at Ártánd. A 12th century church was unearthed in the district of Haj dúhadház, and excavations of the Gothic church started in the centre of the Zovárd people at Szerep village. Of our latest finds of coins those in Debrecen (Batthyány Street and Vendég Street) and the ones at Nyírmártonfalva and at Polgár are worth noting. In the course of preparatory work with the corpus from the Magyar Conquest period terrain inspections were made at Bojt, Biharkeresztes, Bedő, Ártánd, Mezőpeterd, Fúrta and Nagykereki in order to discover medieval settlement patterns. This activity is going to be continued and our findings published in a separate paper. The purpose of this paper is only to present the material found at minor field-works and excavations in the form of photographs and drawings. 77