A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 49. (Nyíregyháza, 2007)

Régészet - Dan Pop: The Copper Axe from Corni

Dan Pop Description of the object: the axe has a pentagonal form, the shift from the hammer arm to the blade, near the shaft-hole is rounded. The hammer arm is short and curved. The hammer arm has a rectangular section, with the upper corners rounded up. The shaft-hole is on the upper part of the piece, having a sleeve only in its inferior part. It is circular in plan and concave in section. The axe has a semicircular blade, slightly wider in its inferior part, where it is sharded. The section of the blade is rectangular, with rounded corners. On one side, near the shaft-hole, there are eight short, narrow cuts. Six of these are placed vertically and two of these are oblique. The axe is dark red, copper coloured, on a small spot a dark green oxidation still can be seen. A part of it had been mechanically removed (by filing and polishing) by the discoverer who wanted to see the material, the piece had been made of. A small part of the shaft-tube had been filed. The piece had not been totally finished after casting, which is evidenced by many irregularities noticeable on its surface. Dimensions: utmost length: 14.4 cm; length of the hammer arm: 3.9 cm; length of blade: 7.6 cm; width of the butt end: 2.6 cm; thickness of butt end: 1 cm; width of blade: 1.8 cm; diameter of the shaft-hole: 2.9 cm; weight: 410 gr (Fig. 2; Inv. No. 35.251 Maramures County Museum; drawing by Gavril Moldovan).

3 The axe of Corni belongs to the category of hammer-axes (Hammeräxte), and is similar to those discovered at Ip (PL II: 2, Sälaj County), Lelei (PL II: 1, Satu Mare County), Särväzel (PL I: 3, Satu Mare County) and Varviz (PL III: 8, Bihor County) attributed to the Székely-Nádudvar type,

4 being also similar to that of "Érd" (PL XVII: 7, Hungary) belonging to the Agnita type (VULPE 1975. 28, PATAY 1984. 60-61, MAREÇ 2002. 104-105). The Székely-Nádudvar type axes are generally defined and differentiated on the basis of their shape. They are pentagonal, with almost trapezoid hammer arm, straight shoulders marking the shift from the butt arm to the hammer arm, on both sides of the shaft-hole with ring shaped tube or sleeve, with Fig. 2 The hammer-axe from Corni (Maramures County, Romania) 2. kép A Corniból (Máramaros megye, Románia) való rézbalta 3 See the illustration in KACSÓ 2004. pl. 15 (photo - the piece on the left side). 4 ROSKA 1942. 15-77, DRIEHAUS 1955. 1-8, SCHUBERT 1965. 278-279, defined as Székely and Nádudvar types; VULPE 1973. 229, VULPE 1975. 26-28, NOVOTNÁ 1970. 23, TODOROVA 1981. 43, PATAY 1984. 47-56, Patay redefines the type Székely-Nádudvar with variants of Székely, Apagy, Dorog and Monostorpályi, where the last one corresponds to variant Nádudvar (SCHUBERT 1965., ZERAVICA 1993. 6-9, MARES 2002. 103-104). 50