Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 31/1. (2011)
Articles
50 S. Berecki-S. J. Sztáncsuj demonstrated a surprisingly modern concept for that period. They aimed to study the archaeological features and the stratigraphy. The discovery contexts of artefacts and the unearthed materials themselves were registered based on new methods, like drawings of general or detail plans, by cartography and photography. Moreover, the results of these researches were published in detail and interpreted in various periodicals of that time. The excavations of I. Kovács from Tärgu Mures from a century ago represent a good example for the new archaeological current from that period. Started after some incidental discoveries, the research was one of the first rescue excavations from Transylvania in the proper sense, following the exhaustive investigation of archaeological features on an urban area affected by building operations. At the beginning of the 20th century the territory of the archaeological site investigated by I. Kovács represented an urban area, situated on the periphery of the historical centre of the town, on a prolonged plateau of the first terrace of the Mures River (PL 1/1), in the vicinity of the former public ‘Gym park’ (Tornakert, PI. 2/1). The dynamic urban evolution from the period preceding the First World War required the extending of building sites, consisting of road and land improvements and other constructions. In 1909, during the road making process, the former Mikszáth Kálmán street (str. Artei in the present; Pi. 2/2) several discoveries from different archaeological periods were revealed. Supported by the local authorities, the excavations were initiated by the Transylvanian Museum Society (Erdélyi Múzeum Egyesület) who commissioned I. Kovács, who was at that time the warden of the antiquity collection of the institute from Cluj. The campaigns were accomplished, with intermissions, between 1909 and 1910; in this period the traces of a settlement from the Copper Age were also discovered, consisting of three circular pits with 150-220 cm diameter and 122-160 cm depth, interpreted by I. Kovács as pit-houses. On the same occasion sporadic settlement related materials from the Early Iron Age, respectively a few graves from a Scythian cemetery and another from the Migration Period (6th c. AD) were unearthed. The results of the excavations were published a few years later in a detailed, accurately documented study (Kovács 1915, 226-325). Without insisting over the discoveries from the more recent epochs, one can assess that I. Kovács’s observations regarding the cultural framing and the dating of the vestiges from the Copper Age settlement broadly passed the test of time. Starting from the typological and stylistic characteristics of the pottery, he separated two distinct cultural phenomena: one defined by the painted, Ariusd type pottery, and another with incised ornaments, defined at a later date by the Hungarian archaeology as the Bodrogkeresztúr culture. The joint appearance, in the same archaeological features of the two groups caused I. Kovács to date the entire material correctly at a contemporaneous chronological horizon - at least partially - with the painted pottery culture from South-eastern Transylvania (Kovács 1915, 246-250). Even if the small number of features and of the unearthed materials delivered relatively scarce information about the structure and extension of the Copper Age settlement, the observations of I. Kovács were for a long time the only source of documentation for the site from Tornakert. In the century following the excavations from 1909-1910, the site from the centre of the town was severely damaged by anthropic factors. The former Tornakert, a place appreciated by the citizens because of its facilities for recreation had gone, while nowadays the entire place is densely built (PI. 1/2). The original aspect of the area is only kept in a small proportion, under the form of a little park (the Maternity Park from the Unirii Square), close to the western margin of the Artei Street (Pi. 1/3). In 2007, on the occasion of some construction interventions on
