Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 31/1. (2011)
Articles
BRONZE OBJECTS FROM THE EXCAVATION OF THE TÄRGU MURES FRANCISCAN FRIARY i Zoltán SOÓS Mures County Museum, Tärgu Mures, RO The Franciscan friary from Tärgu Mures is intensively researched for more than one decade. The present paper proposes to present the bronze objects from these excavations. Based on their utility they were grouped in several types: friary objects, household tools and clothing accessories. A few outstanding artefacts indicate the importance of the Franciscan friary from Tärgu Mures. Keywords: bronze objects, Franciscan friary, Middle Ages, household objects, clothing accessories The excavation of the Franciscan friary from Tärgu Mures, one of the largest friaries in the eastern part of the Hungarian kingdom started in 1999.1 The site of the friary was mainly destroyed in the 17th century; the cloister and most of the friary’s buildings were demolished and reused as construction material for the new town wall. The systematic research of the former friary’s buildings revealed a number of well preserved archaeological complexes that contained rich archaeological material. These provided solid chronological evidence for the identified artefacts since most of them contained coins or in some cases the stratigraphy offered the necessary information for the dating of an object. The Tärgu Mures Franciscan friary had four major construction phases (Soós 2002; 2003). The first construction phase can be dated to the 1320’s when the first still unidentified church and two wooden buildings, a warehouse and a friary building were built (Fig. 2). The second phase can be dated to the end of the 14th century. In this period the second church (today Calvinist church), the sacristy and the northern wing was built. The third phase is connected to the observant Franciscan activity in the 1440’s, when the 55 m high tower was built. The last important construction period was in the 1480’s when Transylvanian Voivode Stephen Báthory fortified the friary because of the approaching Turkish danger. In the mid 16th century the whole town was converted to Calvinism and the friary’s buildings lost their function. A smaller part of the buildings were used by the Protestant school but the other buildings, except the church and the tower, were demolished in order to obtain construction material for the town walls. The site of the former Franciscan friary was almost completely destroyed by later demolition and within the buildings we found only a few undisturbed areas. The excavations provided 1 The systematic archaeological excavation at the site of the former Franciscan friary (in present a Calvinist church) started in 1999 under the supervision of Prof. Adrian A. Rusu, from the Institute of Archaeology and History of Art from Cluj Napoca. MARISIA XXXI, p. 313-337
