Petercsák Tivadar – Váradi Adél szerk.: A népvándorláskor kutatóinak kilencedik konferenciája : Eger, 1998. szeptember 18-20. / Heves megyei régészeti közlemények 2. (Eger, 2000)

„Peduncle" of the Árpádian Period Houses

320 SZENTGYÖRGYI VIKTOR - BÚZÁS MIKLÓS - ZENTAI MIHÁLY rary equipment even against the huge weight of the sagged roof materials: namely, the weight could be raised with the help of draught animals. The pull canal grooved into the platform can easily be filled in with stamping, so the new rafter having been placed into its final position cannot fall back inside the house. A fistsized hole remains at the bottom of the roof (where the free end of the rope was brought out of the house). It is important that the hole, being small, is easy to be refilled: it only needs a handful of straw and a shovelful of earth. The replacement of the new rafters without dismantling the roof can be solved only in the above described way. All the other methods, as the one illustrated in column A of figure 10, necessitated such means because of the huge weight of the roof that were certainly not accessible for the people of the Árpádian period in the Carpathian Basin. Szentgyörgyi Viktor 6721 Szeged Lengyel u. 14. E-mail: szviktor@ludens.elte.hu Búzás Miklós Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum 2001 Szentendre Pf- 63. E-mail: buzas@sznm.hu All the features of the „peduncles" of the Árpádian period houses can be understood from the above. Comparing the experiments carried out during the reconstruction of the „sunken dwelling house" at Kardoskút with archaeological observations we came to the conclusion that in the case of these characteristic canallike ditches the trace and the function met: all the observable features of the archaeological finds support our supposition that the strange ditches were used for the replacement of the rafters in a way we ourselves did. Beside the recognition of the function of a so far unexplained phenomenon, we find the greatest importance of the discovery in the fact that the size of the space outside the dwelling pit but under the roof in the buildings with „peduncles" has become estimable with the methods of classical archaeology. Namely, the lower end of the rafter was placed in the round dead-end of the „peduncle". Translated by Katalin Simán Zentai Mihály 1182 Budapest XVIII. ker. Fiumei u. 35. E-mail: zentaim@mail.matav.hu