A Balaton-felvidék népi építészete. A Balatonfüreden, 1997. május 21-23-án megrendezett konferencia anyaga (Szentendre-Veszprém, 1997)

Balassa M. Iván: Sarvaly – a népi építészeti értelmezés és újraértelmezés lehetősége

Sarvaly - possibilities of interpretation and new interpretation of the traditional architecture IVÁN BALASSA M. There are not many archeological discoveries with such a fundamental importance for the Hungarian traditional architecture as the former settlement Sarvaly, south of the town Sümeg. In fact, this is the only place in Transdanubia where we have the opportunity to study a whole village from the 14th-16th centuries, a period with special importance in the development of traditional architecture. The results of this discovery are accessible for the international scientific research as well, since the complete documentation has been published in German (Holl, Imre-Parádi, Nándor 1982). The author looks into some questions of the interpretation of the findings. He is considering that the wooden walls made of deciduous trees and built on stone foundations did not form the traditional log houses ("Blockbau"). It is possible that the logs fitted to each other cross-headed only on the corners, vertical posts might have been inserted in the walls and the logs fitted in their notches might have served for the purpose of using shorter logs, this way making them longer. The entrances to individual rooms of houses are not always clear because it is hard to imagine that a door would open uphill. Therefore, it is advisable to study again the material, taking into consideration the level differences, which can hardly be concluded from the publications. In the Hungarian publications we find certain ideas about the reconstruction of evolution of houses. (Holl Imre 1979, 45 kk.) Within this, difference is made between houses with "cellar" and houses with "pantry". At the same time, archeological findings in Moravia (Mstenice, Pfaffenschlag, Konuvki) of the same age give evidence that what we see here are not houses with cellar but houses with a onestoried pantry. Archival records in North-Hungary from the 18th century and records from South-Poland from the 16th century onwards also indicate the same. Thus, we don't witness here a development of houses in two directions but variations of house extensions with pantry. As a general conclusion, we can say that analogies from the ethnography can be used for archeological interpretations and reconstruction only with sufficient circumspection and above all, we should beware of theoretical conclusions, which don't really ensue from the source. 124