Mészáros Gyula (szerk.): A Szekszárdi Béri Balogh Ádám Múzeum Évkönyve 1. (Szekszárd, 1970)

Parádi Nándor: Az etei XVI. századi kincslelet

THE ETE HOARD FROM THE XVIth CENTURY (Summary) In the XVIth and XVIIth centuries the Turkish invasion inflicted terrific losses on Hungary. The great increase in coin and jewellery hoards buried under the Turkish rule (from 1526 to the end of the XVIIth century) is a further proof to the extents of the devastation. In 1967 a hoard, hidden in a pottery jug in the once area of the market-town Ete, County Tolna, demolished during the Turkish occupation, was unearthed and brought to the Szekszárd Museum (Fig. 1). The jug, glazed on its upper part and covered with an earthenware lid (Fig. 2), contained 5314 pieces of silver pennies, mainly those of Ferdinand I (1526—1564), one gold coin of Suleyman I (1520—1566) and three rings (Fig. 3,1—3). The latest coin of the find was a penny of Ferdinand 1, minted in 1561, which is also the date of its depositing. The objects of the find were made some decades previously, about the middle of the XVIth century. The rings (Fig. 3, 1—3) are of a rather common type widespread in the XVIth century (Fig. 3,4-9). The hiding place of the hoard points to the fact that its one-time owner was a resident of Ete. This area was seized by the Turkish forces around 1541 and not much later a regular tribute was imposed on it. Ete was, all the same, in the possession of the captains of Sziget: Márk Horváth and after him Miklós Zrínyi, as late as the fall of Szigetvár (1566). From the thirties and forties of the XVIth century Ete was one of the market-towns of Southern Transdanubia trying to draw profit from the possibilities, greatly diminished by the Turkish occupation, and having been able to secure their existence for a longer time by great sacrifices. The signet ring of the hoard (Fig. 3, 2) indicates a person engaged in producing and trading goods, who needed a seal in this occupation. The hoard contained the temporary money supply of its owner, whose possession might have been invested also in goods and placed in loans. Investigating the causes of the hiding, the author states that in the years preceding the occupation of Szigetvár (1566) there were no major military expeditions launched by the Turks and, apart from the regular tribute, we have no knowledge of a heavy Turkish oppression on Ete. On the other hand we have written records about soldiers of the border levying a contribution on the market-towns of Southern Transdanubia in the years preceding the fall of Szigetvár. In the years 1558 and 1559 border soldiers exacted a ransom from Ete not less than six times seizing 525 florins and other valuables. The lot of the adjacent market-towns differed not much from this. In autumn 1560, the neighbouring Szekszárd was looted by soldiers of Márk Horváth, captain of Szigetvár. On the strength of these data the author states that the Ete hoard was buried in consequence of the lootings of the border soldiers. For the population of the area seized by the Turks, the main danger lied in the Turkish power menacing them with pauperization and complete annihilation, at the same time the lootings of the soldiers of the border added to the sufferings of the population and weakened their economical, productive forces. 236