Tálas László szerk.: The late neolithic of the Tisza region (1987)

Vésztő-Mágor (K. Hegedűs and J. Makkay)

K. HEGEDUS-J. MAKKAY Painted sherds from the site. 1: Probably an import from the Petresti culture; 2-3: Import fragments of the Esztár group; 4: Painted human face in the interior of a bowl fragment. Tisza culture; 5: Fragment with bitumen coating. Early Tisza culture. Scale cca. 1:2 [5] The Vésztő tell lies conspicuously close to the SzeghalomKovácshalom mound that was occupied during roughly the same periods of the Neolithic and the Early Copper Age (ECSEDY et al. 1982, 149-150, site 11/50; see also BAKAY 1971, 140-144 and PI. III). Szeghalom-Kovácshalom lies on the right bank of the Rapid Körös, beside a confluence with one of its dead channels that flowed into it from the southeast. The Vésztő mound lies on the left bank of this dead channel, in a meander loop that flanked its northern and eastern side. It had formerly been surrounded by water also to its south and west (an old Holocene bed of the Körös), and the site could hardly be approached without getting one's feet wet until the early 1900s. The highest point of the mound is 93.9 m a.s.l. (on the southern side) and rises to a height of 9 m above the river terrace. The occupation deposits accumulated to a height of 7 m on the northern side (697 cm in the southeastern corner of trench IV); however, a thicker stratification is to be expected under the ruins of the monastery. The tell lies on a Pleistocene sand dune covered by a 40 cm thick light loam deposit (buried soil A). It has since long been open to debate whether the oval Bronze Age tell measuring 250 m from north to south, and 170 m from east to west, had originally also been a twin mound. The uninterrupted horizontal extent of the Neolithic layers suggests a single mound since only above the Copper Age humus (buried soil B) does the tell divide into two smaller mounds along a roughly east-west oriented depression rising gently toward the centre of the mound. The bipartition of the mound can perhaps be attributed to the building of the Arpadian age monastery, when the height of the southern mound part increased considerably. The section of the 1986 excavation revealed that the upper Copper and Bronze Age levels of the tell had only been cut through during the construction of the wine cellar, when the earth necessary for the building of the road leading through the waterlogged environment was removed from the later area of the cellar and its foreground, from the eastern part of the centre of the mound. The layer sequence uncovered in the course of the 1986 campaign clearly shows that all levels overlying level 5 had been cut through obliquely and removed in this area. K. Hegedűs noted the following layer sequence in trenches IV to VIII opened in the western part of the mound: Levels Cultural context The uppermost Bronze Age level: Gyulavarsánd III or surviving Gyulavarsánd culture Q Gyulavarsánd culture (Middle Bronze Age) A composite Early and Middle Copper Age grey layer with 4 occupation levels 5 4 Tisza culture 3 2 1 Szakáihát group The layer sequence and the position of the sterile humus layers noted in the trench opened in 1986 corresponded to the 88