Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 30/1. (2010)
Book Review
Book Review 221 Gáli Erwin-Gergely Balázs, Kolozsvár születése. Régészeti adatok a város 10-13. századi történetéhez (The Birth of Cluj. Historical Data related to the city’s history from the 10th to the 13th century), Kolozsvár, 2009,200 pages, 67 plates, 4 maps, 17 figures and 6 text images. Book review by Keve LÁSZLÓ The reviewed volume, as it is presented in the foreword, compresses the detailed catalogue of the “Hungarian conquest” period and early Arpad age cemeteries and grave goods, the evaluation of the finds and the conclusions that can be subtracted from these, thanks to the work of Erwin Gáli (Vasile Párvan Archaeological Institute, Bucharest) and Balázs Gergely (National History Museum of Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca). In the publication of the volume beside the two already mentioned authors, also two other researchers took part, Szilárd Gál who in a separate chapter analyzed the skeletons from three early medieval cemeteries (Cluj-Napoca- Zápolya street, Cluj-Napoca-Маш square, Hunedoara- Kincseshegy) (p. 157-161) and Mátyás Vremir who analyzed the animal bones found in grave number 10 of the Zápolya street from Cluj-Napoca (p. 162). Published under the edition of the Erdélyi Múzeum- Egyesület (Transylvanian Museum Society), winner of the 2009 Debut-prize, the volume is a completion to the scholarship since it attempts to discuss uniformly “Hungarian conquest” period and early Arpad age cemeteries discovered on the territory of Cluj-Napoca. This type of detailed analysis of cemeteries was not known to the Romanian scholarship until now. Regarding the structure of the volume, after the short introduction the authors present the physical geography of Transylvania and Cluj-Napoca as well as the outline of the political history of the tenth to the thirteenth century Cluj-Napoca and its outskirts. An important role is given to the history of research of the tenth and twelfth century cemeteries of the surrounding areas of Cluj-Napoca (p. 16-20). The detailed analysis of the burial customs of these cemeteries considering their structure, the depth of the burial pits, their shape, size, siting and arrangement, as well as the position of the skeletons in the graves, the presence of trepanation, the coins, pottery and animal bones found in the graves, are all discussed in the book. The question of survival of the tenth century burial rituals to the eleventh century is posed. The authors, referring to the present state of research, place the upper time-limit of the tenth century cemeteries to the second half of the century while the lower time-limit of the eleventh century cemeteries to the middle of the century. Beside the almost one century break the authors cannot show continuity in the case of burial rituals of these two centuries (p. 21-50).
