Kisné Cseh Julianna – Kemecsi Lajos szerk.: Komárom – Esztergom Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 7. (Tata, 2000)

Vicze Magdolna: The symbolic meaning of Urn 715

found within the Szőreg-Perjámos cultural complex

60 with the only restriction that this decorative element just like in the Nagyrév contexts is always upside down

61

. Both this feature and the presence of the zigzag motive on SzőregPerjámos material like on the small cups and the bowl from Mokrin

62 also indicates the common ancestry of the Nagyrév and Perjámos pottery tradition. The ancestry or deep rootedness of these motives is clear from all the above said. Now looking at the urn with this in mind it becomes clear that here we are dealing with an intentional and structured composition. The shape, the proportions and the decoration of the urn together with the Kisapostag cup and Nagyrév bowl are all significant and play an important role in this symbolically meaningful context. Such a burial forces one to stop and contemplate the question, what does the burial of a person represent, or what can be assumed from it. Analysing a burial is always an attractive task to the archaeologist, because as Richards states it so adequately,".

. .a grave and its contents are the result of conscious selection and deposition, unlike the majority of artefacts found in archaeological contexts."

63 In other words a burial can carry a much wider range of information about the intentions of the society and its members than the usual archaeological material, where the presence of conscious deposition is not so straightforward as in the case of burial data. As a grave and its grave-goods are the physical manifestations of a vital, but brief event in life, they might encompass the following potential information. 1. Possibility to create a fine chronology. 2. Cognition of the burial customs of the given society. Although at this point Harke 's warning have to be kept in mind that the burial data at the time of the funeral is already a) fragmentary, b) incomplete, c) partial, d) conceptual, e) selective.

64 60 BONA 1975, Pis. 95. 5, 105. 3, 106. 4, 8, 10, 107. 18; PL LXVIII. Gr. 259; V. SZABÓ, 1997, PL I. 1. 61 Hence its name in the literature is either „crossed flag", see for example Mozsolics 1942, 27, or tent, or house for example in SCHREIBER 1984, 4, 22, motif. 62 GIRIC 1971, Pis. XXXIV. Gr. 110, LXXIV. Gr. 282, LXXXV. 3, XCIV. 2; TASIC 1971, 16-18. 63 RICHARDS 1987, 2. 64 For more detailed evaluation see HÄRKE 1997,22. 124