Gyöngyössy Márton (szerk.): Perspectives on the Past. Major Excavations in County Pest (Szentendre, 2008)
A Late Bronze Age cemetery at Solymár (8th/7th century BC- late 1 st century AD) (lst-4th centuries AD) (400-4S4AD) (454-568AD) (568-811/829 AD) (895-1 301 AD) (1301-1526/1686) Altogether 494 archaeological features were uncovered in 2004 and 2005 under the direction of Éva Maróti during the investigation of the planned site of the Auchan shopping centre, its utilities and the petrol station at Solymár. Most of these could be assigned to the Late Bronze Age Urnfield period. About one-third of the Late Bronze Age features were part of a settlement, of which a few sunken houses with daubed walls and over a hundred pits were uncovered. Pottery and 2. animal bones dominated the finds, alongside which a few polished bone needles and awls, pyramidal loom weights, spindle whorls, clay ladles, chipped chert blades and polished whetstones were also uncovered. Two burial grounds were investigated: one lay on a ridge in the settlement’s immediate vicinity, the other slightly farther to east. The grave pottery indicates that the burial ground nearer the settlement, containing roughly a hundred inurned burials, represents the culture’s earlier phase, while the other cemetery with 110 burials can be assigned to a later phase. Some eight to ten vessels (urns, bowls, pots, mugs, cups) were placed in the burials in addition to the urn containing the ashes. Most vessels were finely made with a lustrous black surface and were decorated with straight or oblique fluting, appliqué ribs and small knobs. One small vessel, recovered from Feature 424, was modelled in the shape of a boot. Bronze costume ornaments and jewellery items, such as long pins, button-like small studs, rings of spirally wound wire, fingerrings, beads, bracelets, pendants and various ornaments of sheet metal, were often placed in or beside the vessel containing the ashes of the deceased. The metal articles were apparently not cremated together with the deceased, but were deposited in the urn afterwards, together with the ashes, as shown by a finely crafted, over 20 cm long pin decorated with grooving, which had been thrust into the ashes. ^ - 1 Some graves contained the burials of several individuals. Feature 392, for example, had three urns, a huge bowl, four smaller bowls placed one over the other and two small cups. This grave also yielded small clay wheels, which had probably been part of a small wooden wagon model. It was not possible to excavate the entire territory of the settlement and the two cemeteries and thus their exact extent remain unknown. • Éva Maróti and Anita Kecskés 1. Bronze jewellery from the cemetery 2. Excavated urn burials 3. Bronze knife with ringed hilt 4. Clay wheel 5. Vessels from the burials
