Nógrád Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve XXVII-XXVIII. (2003-2004)

Tanulmányok - Régészet - Tamkó Károly: Egy díszített kelta kardhüvely Balassagyarmatról

Decorated Celtic scabbard from Balassagyarmat In 1965, J. Odor, a resident of Balassagyarmat presented a number of finds to the Museum of Balassagyarmat that had probably come to light in the inner city area. The finds included médiéval pottery fragments a rusted iron axe a fragmentary sword scabbard and a strongly corroded iron chain. The find circumstances of these finds are rather uncertain and after the elapse of thirty years they can only be reconstructed to some extent from the articles State of préservation. Even though the surviving fragments cannot be joined, they undoubt edly came from the same scabbard. The corrosion on the interior of the plates suggests that a sword had been kept in the scabbard and that the sword had been földed in at least one place. The scabbard and the sword chain both show strong traces of burn from a crémation burial. It seems likely that the sword scabbard and twisted sword chain came from the same context. On the basis of its chape, the scabbard can assigned to group В of De Navarro's Middle La Tène scabbard types (De Navarro 1972,151-200). On the other hand, the chape, the scabbard mouth, the reconstructed length of the scabbard and the overlap type corresponds most closely to Lejars' group 5A in the typological scheme based on the swords from Goumay-sur- Aronde, corresponding to the LT Cl chronologi-cal horizon (Lejars 1994, 35-36, 49-52) It must be borne in mind, however, that both typochronological schemes were elaborated for a représentative site and that they are in gênerai valid for the artefacts from that particular region -in other words -these two chronological classifications must be treated with caution in the case of distant analogies (Szabó 1974, 246-251). Swords with a comparable scabbard appeared in the third phase of the Chotín cemetery in the Carpathian Basin, corresponding to the LT Cl horizon. It would appear that the sword chain is slightly earlier since this type appears in the second, late LT B2/C1 phase of the Chotín cemetery (Gebhard 1989, 83-92). This slight chronological différence does not contradict the assumption that the finds came from the same context, which can thus be dated to the LT B2/C1 phase of the Late Iron Age. The decorated sword scabbard and the sword chain from Balassagyarmat, as well as a number of other fmds brought to light earlier in this area indicate that there was a major Celtic cemetery in this area, probably on the ridge by the Ipoly river under the centre of the modem town. This whole study is published in English in Ősrégészeti Levelek (Tankó 2003, 94-97). 222