Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 31/1. (2011)
Articles
Bronze Objects from the Excavation of the Tárgu Mures Franciscan Friary 317 material was not so numerous. Nevertheless, it contained a number of unique and high quality finds, mainly renaissance stove tiles, but in the area of the former heating system we found a larger concentration of book covers. The bronze ornaments were found in ash and burned soil bellow the filling of the cellar composed of demolition material. Based on the powerful burnt traces on the floor of the cellar we could establish that the northern wing of the friary once burned down and it was reconstructed later. This circumstance let us believe that the scriptorium of the friary was among the heated parts of the buildings and it was destroyed in a fire together with the books. In the demolition layers of the cellar there were only a few bronze objects, we found one more book cover ornament and a few bronze fragments. The other bronze objects were identified accidentally or they were single finds thus they could not be connected to a specific activity or friary building. Altogether, a very important quantity of bronze artefacts was found, among them several rare objects and some of them, such as the seal, are unique until now in medieval Hungary.2 The bronze material Generally we call bronze objects all the materials made of copper, plumb or tin alloy. The bronze also contains different materials so we have tin or plumb bronze depending on the quantities. It is important regarding the origin of an object if it is yellow copper, because these are all imported. The bronze material identified during the excavations may be grouped in three major categories. The first category is composed of objects that belonged to the specific activity of a friary such as items belonging to book binding, seals, etc. The second group is formed of clothing accessories, the third group contains different tools, while in the fourth group we have unidentified objects. Within the three categories one can separate items that were probably produced in specialized town workshops and the rest of the objects were probably imported. In this matter it is of great help the research of E. Benkő (2002) on Transylvanian bronze workshops, which produced church bells and baptismal fonts. On the medieval bells of different chronological periods one can see different small decorative medallions. Among these medallions there are two major groups; the first one represents the symbol of different pilgrimage places reused for a longer period within a bell founder workshop, while the second group is composed of book cover ornaments and of cloth or belt accessories. The medallions representing clothing accessories and book cover ornaments have a very wide variety both chronologically and typologically. In the medieval workshops they reused a number of bronze ornaments and in case of each bell or baptistery we have a different set of decoration motifs. Several ornaments were used throughout generations and a certain set of symbols became the trademark of a workshop, therefore the production year of a bell can be misleading in the chronological determination of the decoration elements. Moreover the set of symbols used on the bells can be misleading as well because they do not necessarily reflect the material produced in Transylvanian workshops. We have few written evidences regarding the mobility of the Transylvanian guild members in Sibiu (Hu. Nagyszeben, Germ. Hermannstadt) the son of two different masters studied in Vienna and it is described, that when they returned they brought a number of special bronze items, belt and cloth ornaments, to use as bell or baptismal font ornament in their own workshop (Benkő 2002, 180). 2 Two more seals were found in excavations in the Hungarian kingdom, one 14th century seal in Visegrád and one 13th century seal in the Pilis Cistercian monastery.
