Agria 40. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2004)

Takács Miklós–Vaday Andrea: Avar edényégető kemencék Kompolton

Miklós Takács-Andrea Vaday The Avar kilns at Kistéri-tanya, Kompolt The present study aims at examining two Avar kilns, known as objects 296 and 297, at Kompolt's Kistéri-tanya. The first section contains descriptions of the two excavated objects. The damaged remains suggest most probably that the upper part of the two pottery kilns was dug up and destroyed before the kilns were buried. It is for this reason that the original arrangement can only be guessed at from the clay grate and the few remaining fragments from the top half of the kiln. Because of the destruction of the two kilns the broken vessel fragments in the filling should be treated as secondary rather than primary finds. That is to say, one shouldn't treat the fragments as if they were the remains of the final run of vessels being fired in the kiln. The second section of the study is made up of an analysis of the vessel fragments found in the fillings of the two kilns. Following a statistical analysis of the shaping techniques and the various inscribed patterns, we tried to establish the shape of the vessels and their function based on the surviving fragments. Although a large majority of the fragments were from pots and cooking pots, some plates also came to light, as did a piece of a baking mould, as well as a fragment from the base of an unusual cylinder-shaped vessel. The third section of the study contains a chronological analysis of the two objects, which concludes that both kilns date from the 9

th century. This dating is supported by the total lack of manually-formed pots (the only fragment betraying anything resembling this kind of technique is a thrown pot which had previously been manipulated), the rarity of the engraved patterns on the inside lip of the rim, the presence of undecorated vessels, as well as the fact that there is a significant incidence of straight lines inscribed at wide intervals. 103