Majorossy Judit: A Ferenczy Múzeum régészeti gyűjteményei - A Ferenczy Múzeum kiadványai, D. sorozat: Múzeumi füzetek - Kiállításvezetők 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Rácz Tibor Ákos: Középkor
region including Budapest and its surroundings where the highest number of infrastructural developments have taken place in the last two decades. The then established routes, like the South-Eastern section of the MO highway and ring-road, or the diverting sections of the main road number 4 around Vecsés, Üllő, Cegléd, and Abony crossed dozens of sites from the Arpadian Age, and the large-scale excavations conducted within these areas made it possible to deepen our knowledge about the village sites of the medieval era, their inner structure, the dwellings and lifestyles of the common people of the Arpadian Age. During the excavations of these villages almost without exception given-up, emptied settlements are documented. Exceptionally valuable artifacts turn seldom up. The material finds of the houses usually consist of domestic pottery, some iron and bronze artifacts, and animal bones. In the 10-12th century pottery-making was a kind of domestic industry. The ceramic findings of the Early Arpadian Age contain pots in an overwhelming large number, and only a few other types of vessels, bowls, and clay cauldrons are discovered. The extremely huge scale of various forms are typical of the age, which phenomenon is caused by the irregularity of size - that is the cubic capacity the different shapes of rims, and the various arches of the shoulders and the bellies of these vessels. The 12th century vessels were formed more precisely than in earlier times, the bodies of the objects became more symmetrical. On an average, the quantity of ceramics during the 12th century is higher than in the 10-11th centuries, but this can be explained not by the more complex and richer use of vessels, but by the growing number of settlement objects. From the middle of the Arpadian Age the number of cauldrons started to increase, and this type of pottery was prepared in large quantities and were also made of clay burnt to white. From the 13th century onwards in the central region of Pest Country those groups of ceramics with white burnt material were commonly known and used both in towns and in villages. These white vessels were exclusively made by hand-turned, slow wheels and by a coiling technique. The great part of this ceramic group consists of the pots, nevertheless, formerly unknown new types, such as bottles, mugs, jugs also occurred. After its appearance, the new group of ceramics pushed almost immediately out the former red or brown types of vessels. Some of the characterising elements of the white ceramics, for example, the spiral motif or the bottom seals had also been noticeable on the earlier products, but the standardisation of the raw material as well as the uniformisation of the rim, the improved quality and the quantitative bloom of such findings indicate, that a completely new, more specialised social group arose, whose members exclusively dealt with pottery. Archaeological research can shed more light to several aspects of the former life of medieval settlements, for example, the circumstances of settling down, the changes of the dwellings, or the regional characteristics of the material cultural, but there are only a few political-historical events that can be illustrated with the help of archaeological findings. The indirect signs of the mid-lS^-century Mongol destructions are those coin- and treasure hoards that were put in ceramic pots and were hidden in the earth and could never be reclaimed by their owners. In exceptional cases the tangible traces of the destruction of a settlement can also be documented. On the Madarász mound at Cegléd the larger parts of an llth-13th-century settlement were excavated. In the living area of a house numbered as 1344 that belonged to the late phase of the settlement, not only the traces of fire destruction and the tools left behind (sickle, a pair of scissors, and pots) could be found, but also the skeletons of two children and their mother, who sought shelter in the largesized oven, though in vain. Near the ten/eleven-year-old boy’s hand a waffle-iron, and by 63 Rózsafüzér / Rosary
