A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 41. - 1999 (Nyíregyháza, 1999)

Régészet - Eszter Istvánovits: Tiszavasvári-Városföldje, Jegyző-tag. A settlement of the 5th century

Tiszavasvári-Városföldje, Jegyző-tag. A settlement of the 5th century 3. Polgár-Kengyel-köz (RACZKY-ANDERS 1997. photo 5). 4. Szegvár-Oromdűlő.

6 5. Tápé-Széntéglaégető, grave 291 : a truncated (?) skeleton of a man with an iron ring beside his skull (TROGMAYER 1975.67, VÖRÖS 1998.64). 6. Tiszadob-Sziget, feature 174.

7 The hans of the dead thrown into a beehive shaped pit were bound (Fig. 8). Fig. 8 Tiszadob—Sziget, feature 174 8. kép Tiszadob—Sziget 174. objektum 7. Vác-Csörögi-rét, feature 74: a man and a baby thrown into a garbage pit were unearthed here. Feature 99: skeletons of an adult and child. The skeletons of the adults in both cases were lying in the pits in an irregular position (KULCSÁR 1997. 375).

8 In my opinion it would not be proper to study the skeletons of babies sometimes observed in settlement features

9 together with the data mentioned above, because in the Sarmatian cemeteries we hardly find any baby graves. So, we have to suggest, that they were buried at some other place differently from the custom of the burial of the adults. This question needs a special study. 6. Kind oral information by Gábor Lőrinczy. 7. Excavation by the author, unpublished. 8. Supplemented by oral information of the author. 9. Such as, for example, the one from Hódmezővásárhely-Solt Pale, house 17 underlined also by Andrea Vaday, but at the same place we can mention the skeleton of a baby found in Tiszaeszlár-Bashalom house 3 (KOVALOVSZKI 1980.18) or Gyoma-Ailer téglagyár (VADAY 1996.152). 10. Kind oral information by Gábor Lőrinczy. 11. The same opinion was expressed by VÖRÖS 1998.64. The age or sex of the dead buried in the settlement features are not specific. Women, men and children alike were found. Most of these features in the Sarmatian territory of the Great Hungarian Plain are dated to the late period: end of the 4th - beginning of the 5th century, but there are also earlier examples. Among them the one from Szegvár-Oromdűlő.

10 I have to notice that feature 250 from Kompolt published by Andrea Vaday cannot be dated either to the late period suggested by the author of the article (VADAY 1997.84, 2. kép), at least the fragment of a terra sigillata vessel found here contradicts this dating (even taking into consideration that the piece in question was secondarily perforated and in this case we have to suggest a long period of use). This chronological situation in itself makes us approach critically Vaday'

s historical hypothesis according to which the dead were "cleaned" by the Gepidians who - citing her words - occupied Sarmatian settlements "for a time of short camping" (VADAY 1997.86). Homogeneous archaeological material found above and under the skeletons also contradicts this suggestion which is also doubted by the fact that in the pits of the settlement only one or some skeletons were found. If Vaday'

s hypothesis was right we would rather find mass graves. At the same time we have to agree with her opinion according to which it would be very unlikely for a community to bury its own dead into garbage pits.

11 Earlier it was suggested that the dead found in the features of settlements can be associated with slaves (CSALLÁNY 1961.302). In my opinion the most acceptable approach of this question is the short notice connecting the site in Polgár. According to the caption, it is a "Sacrificial pit from the Sarmatian period" (RACZKY-ANDERS 1997. photo 5). In the case of the listed features the excavators observed several phenomena supporting this suggestion. I mean the frequently described traces of fire, sometimes pieces of grinding stones. We have to underline the presence of dogs and eggs situated around the bottom of the pit 1982/26 from Tiszaföldvár (VADAY 1997.83,3. kép). Dog skeletons deserve a special attention, because they also appear at several Sarmatian settlements and we have data referring to the fact that a part of the dog corpses could get into settlement features as a result of sacral activity (see for example the case of the Dunakeszi-Alagi major feature 138 mentioned above). Here I would like to draw the attention also to feature 118 from Tiszadob where a beehive shaped pit was dug into the bottom of an other - cylindric - pit, and in the lower pit we found a skeleton of a huge dog (Fig. 9). 177