Szilágyi Miklós (szerk.): A Szekszárdi Béri Balogh Ádám Múzeum Évkönyve 10-11. (Szekszárd, 1982)

Gaál Attila: The 16th–17th century cemetery of Dombóvár–Békató

12. Woven bronze ring 13. Felt hat 14. Triangular filigré tin pendents 15. Iron enforcement for shoe soles 16. Coins used as jewelry //. Utilitarian objects 1. Knife 2. Flint iron 3. Flint stone 4. Flattened bronze pin used for cosmetics ///. Ritual furnishings 1. Coins 2. Iron pieces 3. Tin disc The representative apparel of women, the beadeed and Cypria shelled headdresses, ornamented forehead ribbons are of interest among the finds. Looking for parallels we discovered that they were unknown from cemeteries of Hungarian ethnic composition. Nevertheless the still unpublished, earlier excavated material of the Zombor airport and Bácsmonostorszeg cemeteries of the 16th—17th centuries yielded similar objects. József Korek dated their production to the 15th-16th centuries and their use, according to two Italian coins if a headdress to the 17th century. Searching for parallels to the hairdress, pendents, and Cypria shells József Korek concluded that the population of the above mentioned cemetery consisted of certain southern Slavs, perhaps Serbians, who came and settled during the time of the Turkish rule. The ethnographic bibliography working up the customs of the southern Slavs of Baranya County provides data concerning the burial of children of both sexes, even young women and men, with the headress of their mothers. To corrolate these with the archaeologocal parallels our attention turned to the Bosnians and Sokacs, however, the distinct differences warned us only to accept the southern Slav ethnic proup as a starting point. Studying the grave furniture further we came to such dual conclusion as well. Almost everywhere in our subject group we found features relating to and differing from the Zombor region archaeological and the Baranya southern Slav ethnographic material characteristic only to our cemetery. Dating limitations of the Dombóvár-Békató cemetery were possible primarily with the help of the coins. The fake „weispfennig" (Fig. 10 and PI. HI.), made between 1576 and 1612; the 16th century Nürnberg token found on the headdress of child's grave no. 193 (Fig. 26.), furthermore the 17th century dating of the two fragmentary Turkish silver coins enabled us to date the local settling of the people creating the cemetery to the 16th and 17th centuriss. Further perfection of dates and presumptions concerning the ethnic chaaracter of the people could only be accomplished by examining the historic data and the conlcusions derived from the bone material. Data concerning the history of the settling The area of our cemetery belonged to the Cistercian Abbey of Abraham near Dombóvár in the 13th to 14th centuries and the Church property owners were involved in a legal suit with the Bodo family of György who arbitrarily occupied the territory in the northern bank of the Kapos rives. The suit, however, was suspended during the time of the Turkish occupation, only to start again between the new oweers of the Dombó property of the Eszterházys and the legal successors of the Abraham Abbey, the Bishopric of Pécs. Concerning the early and late history of the area this legal suit and document bundle was our most important source material. According to the data of the 1443 diploma of the Szekszárd Convention the community (Békató, alias Újfalu) was founded „during the earlier bellicose times" by Gergely Bodo of György, and Peter, the Abbot of Abran, sued his property in vain to get satisfaction only in a decision which was to be carried out after the deat of Gergely Bodo. According to a later diploma his successor tried to have this decision come true, but without much success because a census of the 16th century still listed Békató as property of the Bodo family, furthermore according to a much later document we are informed that Tamás Bosnyák, married into the Bodo family, as a result of long and steady struggle managed to force the populatoon of Békató to pay him taxes in 1631. (As a token tax they paid with a pair of slippers and foot-rag!) This latter data however refers to the period examied to the time of the occupation. The beginning of the occupation must certainly coincide with the fall of the castle of Dombó. The time of this however is not exactly known, but it is a fact that by 1552 it held a considerable Turkish garrison. Our area near to Dombó became the property of a medium sized administrative unit after the fall of the castle of Koppány, belonging to the Koppány sanjak. But in vain did we look for the name of once Békató in the „defter" tax lists, neither could it be found in the 1563,1573-74, 1678 and 1580 „defters". It is most likely that Békató is uninhabited, deserted, a ghost village by that time. It appears again in a register of 1581 in a note made already by Omar Cselebi about the taxpayers of the settled 82 Iflak villages of the Koppány sanja. The second in line is Békató with the following inhabitants: 182