Gulyás Katalin et al. (szerk.): Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 22. (Szolnok, 2013)

Régészet - Szentpéteri József: Az Avar Kaganátus hatalmi központjai – a hringek

SZENTPÉTERI JÓZSEF: AZ AVAR KAGANÁTUS HATALMI KÖZPONTJAI - A HRINGEK

This view was shared by Professor Ottó Trogmayer in his book Gazing into the Past: “Our eyes are irresistibly drawn to the huge, elongated elevation east of the road on the settlement’s outskirts, a unique formation in the region.”

The assumed hring can perhaps be identified with the site at Tételhegy in County Bács-Kiskun (sometimes known as Tételhalom and Titel, and appearing as Titlus in Latin sources). The monadnock lies on the eastern outskirts of Solt near the Dunaföldvár and Bölcske crossing places over the river, some 7 km from the Danube, between the roads leading to Kecskemét and Kiskőrös. The monadnock was not eroded by the Danube in spite of the river’s shifting channel owing to its hard bedrock. The highest point of the north-west to south-east oriented, elongated oval hill is 114 m a.s.l.; the 100 hectares large hill rises above the flood- plain by some 17 m. (Fig. 5)

I began the interdisciplinary investigation of the Tételhegy site in 2005. However, very few finds of the Avar period have so far come to light. Three burials of the Avar period were uncovered in 1951 east of Tételhegy, whose grave goods were typical for the mid-7th century and included a grey jug with stamped decoration. The few stray finds from the area included a worn Byzantine copper follis of Heraclius and Heraclius Constantinus minted in Constantinople in 613-614 and wheel-turned pottery of the 8th-9th centuries. The field observations suggested that the Avar settlement and the cemetery lay along the roads leading to the assumed political centre.

For the time being, the hypothesis proposed by Professors Bóna and Trogmayer can be neither confirmed nor refuted. The series of aerial archaeological photographs (Fig. 6), the stray finds, and the various features uncovered during the course of the excavations, such as the settlement ringed by multiple defences and the cemeteries from various periods, nonetheless suggest that the site served as a political centre during several periods. The site was intermittently occupied from the Middle Bronze Age to the onset of the Ottoman period (1700 BC-mid- 16th century).

The distribution of the sites yielding pseudo-buckles seems to support the above hypothesis. In her study describing a grave discovered in 2003, Éva Garam also discussed the horizon characterised by pseudobuckles of the Early Avar period and the typo-chronological problems of the assemblages with pseudo-buckles, as well as the probable social rank of the individuals wearing high-status belts of this type. Taking Garam’s study as my starting point, I would like to call attention to an interesting phenomenon suggested by the location of the sites yielding pseudo-buckles, which in turn perhaps has some bearing on the location of the period’s political and administrative centres.

The maps presented here can be interpreted as indicating that the elite which rose to power in the 630s, perhaps as a result of the emergence of a new ruling dynasty, relocated the seat of the Avar Khaganate to the Danube-Tisza Interfluve. The principal insignia of rank, the belt adorned with gold pseudo-buckle mounts, also indicates that by making it part of the costume, the new elite also acknowledged the political authority of the Byzantine Empire. Gold pseudo-buckles have been only found in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve, while the sites of the gilt pieces from Transdanubia enclose (or perhaps control) the broader area of the previous political centre. (Fig. 7)

The political centre at the time of the Khaganate’s decline (803-895): Titel (southern Backa District, Voivodina, Serbia)

My hypothesis is that castrum Tetei, the seat of the Bulgarian dux Salanus was the last political centre of the Avar Khaganate. The name of Salanus (Salan) occurs thirty-five times in the Gesta Hungarorum, a chronicle interwoven with fictional elements written around 1200 by the Anonymous Chronicler, most likely the notary of King Béla III (1127-1190). This can hardly be mere chance since according to the chronicle, he was the mightiest foe encountered by Prince Árpád, leader of the ancient Hungarian tribes, in the Carpathian Basin. Salanus’ kingdom lay in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve; its seat was castrum Tetei, which in my view can be identified with modern Titel. (Fig. 8)

Is there a plausible explanation for the existence of two settlements by the same name (Tetel/Titel)? After the Avar Khaganate’s seat was plundered twice by Charlemagne’s troops in 795 and 796, the Khagan, whose power had been also diminished by internal strifes, perhaps decided to transfer his seat to the hill by Titel in the Backa. This location was an excellent choice for it could be well defended seeing that it was virtually inaccessible from the east and south, where the Tisza flowed into the Danube, and was protected by a larger and smaller Roman rampart toward the Danube-Tisza Interfluve. (Fig. 9) The Avar Khagan, who maintained good relations with (and was perhaps also related to) the Bulgarian royal family, placed himself and the remnants of his people living in the wastelaid Avar lands (in Avarorum solitudo) east of the Danube under the authority of the Bulgarian Kingdom.

Translated by the author

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