Gyöngyössy Márton (szerk.): Perspectives on the Past. Major Excavations in County Pest (Szentendre, 2008)
In addition to various settlement features of the Early Bronze Age Makó group, 620 Avar burials were uncovered in 1991, 1995 and 2004 on the site of the Budapark shopping centre, lying between the M1 Motorway and Road 100, the first in the series of large-scale salvage excavations. The 1991 campaign was directed by Sarolta Tettamanti in collaboration with Mrs Csongrádi Éva Balogh, Éva Maróti and László Simon, the 1995 campaign by Mrs Csongrádi Éva Balogh and Adrien Pásztor, the 2004 campaign by Éva Maróti and Tamás Repiszky. One typical element of the burial rite of the community interring its deceased in this cemetery was that men and women were provided with different food and drink: women (and a few children) were generally given their “farewell feast” in handthrown vessels or mugs, while men were offered chunks of meat on the testimony of the animal bones, which have exclusively been recovered from male burials. The fear of the dead returning to torment the living explains why the deceased was laid prone, with the face toward the ground in one burial (Grave 42). The wealthiest members and leaders of the community were buried with a harnessed saddle-horse (Graves 76, 77, 264). The deposition of stones or a stone packing was observed in adult burials, both female and male graves. Most of the finds recovered from the burials were costume adornments or jewellery items, such as lockrings, earrings, beads, brooches, iron buckles, belt mounts and the like, or simple tools and implements, such as iron knives, spindle whorls, iron needles in a bone needle-case, axes and tinder sets. Weapons, such as iron arrowheads, spears, sabres and horse harness sets were more rare. The use of the investigated cemetery section can be put between the last decades of the 7th century and the early 9th 2. century in view of the grave goods, which included double pelta shaped belt mounts of pressed silver, and gilded and cast bronze belt sets with openwork mounts decorated with lily motifs. • László Simon 4. 1. Gilt bronze phalera decorated with metal inlay from Grave 264 2. Aerial view of the site 3. Pressed silver mounts from Grave 138 4. Cast belt set decorated with lily motifs from Grave 264 5. Avar graves during excavation An Avar cemetery at Biatorbágy
