Majorossy Judit: A Ferenczy Múzeum régészeti gyűjteményei - A Ferenczy Múzeum kiadványai, D. sorozat: Múzeumi füzetek - Kiállításvezetők 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Czene András: Kora bronzkor
Perhaps the most characteristic pottery type of this culture is the perforated pedestailed bowl. The vessels have incised-dotted decoration, sometimes the variations of these were arranged into patterns. The pointed - sometimes perforated - knobs on the pottery are very typical. The lifestyle of the Middle Copper Age did not significantly differ from that of the Early Copper Age. The structure of the society is known mainly from the populous cemeteries, and the short life-span settlements with their typically few houses have become better known only in the last few years. Concluding from the analysis of the grave goods, social differences became more significant in this period. A higher ranked person wanted to signify his privileged status even after his death, that is why heavy copper artifacts, jewels, sometimes even gold articles were put into his grave. On those territories of Pest County that are shown in the exhibition two peoples lived during this era: on the Transdanubian part of the recent county and around the area North of Vác the Ludanice group, while between the Danube and the Tisza rivers the people of the Bodrogkeresztúr culture lived. The people of the Bodrogkeresztúr culture occupied roughly the same territory as that of the previous Tiszapolgár culture, it followed the other’s traditions, and there are similarities in their pottery making as well. The pedestalled bowls were still in use, but several new types also developed, which became the main identifying remains of this culture. Such kind of vessel is the so-called “butt-vessel” which is a large-sized storage pot with perforated knob handles, and one of which can be seen in the exhibition. The vessel on display was found as a funerary gift in a male grave surviving in fairly good condition, and it was surrounded by some more pots. Another very important type of diagnostic vessel of the period is the pot with a long neck and a rounded belly, called “milk-jug” by the researchers. The vessel got its name after those milk jugs that were in use in the village at that time when the first pieces of this type were excavated, it happened, of course, some decades ago. The Ludanice people are much less known than those of the above-mentioned Bodrogkeresztúr culture. According to our current knowledge, they lived the northern part of Pest County and Slovakia and were mainly traders. It is interesting that they often had their sites on hilltops, but they liked using caves, too. The remains of the culture were found in Pest County in the “Green-cave” near Budakalász in 2002. In the Late Copper Age significant social changes took place, and these processes can be also followed in the archaeological material. The former sharp territorial structure - which has been the characteristic of the Carpathian Basin since the Neolithic and could also be recognised in Pest County - ceased to exist in the Late Copper Age. The River Danube as a boundary marked off the territories of the different cultures, and this borderline had been crossed only at some places, for example, in the region of Gödöllő. At the beginning of the Late Copper Age period a slow homogenisation process started and after a while a large uniform material culture was born (detectable mainly in the equiforms of pottery and decorations) which, though, preserved special local elements characteristic of each area. It is interesting that during this standardisation process - which can be noticed from Bulgaria through Hungary and Austria up to the South Germany - the number of copper tools in the archaeological material drastically decreased, often only copper chisels are Kétosztatü tál, Baden-komplexum / Bipartite bowl, Baden complex 18
