Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 33/4. (2013)
Articles
Churchyards in the Transylvanian Basin from the 11th to the first half of the 13th centuries 145 the topography of the graves containing furnishings, he recorded the changes in the use of this area and the chronology of the cemetery. It was István Méri, who established the methodology for churchyards excavations in his investigations carried out in Chidea during World War II which have remained valid up to this date.64 In the states from the territory of the former Monarchy, only in Czechoslovakia churchyards were excavated between the two world wars.65 After World War II the research of churchyards became an underestimated field of archaeology. The reasons are understandable: cemeteries that are difficult to research and have poor grave goods did not attract archaeologists. On the other hand, two trends became the mainstream: find-centred and constructioncentred research.66 Due to find-centred research the 12th century cultural horizon has been clarified with the fact that hair rings with S-shaped ends do not give exact dates, they can just roughly dated to the 11th-13th centuries, the big sized rings with churns were not used as bracelets but earrings, etc.67 However, during this period some churchyard cemeteries were completely excavated in Czechoslovakia (e. g. the cemetery in Ducové excavated in 1968-1975, the cemetery in Krásno was excavated in 1952-1955).68 Hungarian archaeology managed to catch up only in the 90s: in the last two decades the sites in Főnyed-Gó/yás/a, Esztergom-Zsidód, Zalavár-Kápolna, Budapest-Kána, Hajdúdorog- Kati-dűlő69 were completely excavated, but none of them have been published completely so far. Ágnes Ritoók observed in one of her studies what bears major significance in the future analysis of the churchyards in the Carpathian Basin: except for the churchyards in Ducové,70 no cemetery can be dated to a time earlier than the Árpádian era, apart from the 9th century cemeteries which were abandoned at the beginning of the 10th century.71 64 After the reunion of Hungary and northern Transylvania in 1940 I. Méri worked in Cluj: Méri 1944. 65 Ruttkay 2005, 31. 66 Ritoók 2010, 474. 67 Szőke 1962, 88; Parádi 1975, 119-161; Bóna 1978, 99-157. 68 With the statistics of churches and churchyard cemeteries: Ruttkay 2005, 31-39. 69 Főnyed-Gólyásfa: M. Aradi 1998, 113-154; Esztergom- Zsidód: Molnár 2005, 109-114; Zalavár-Kápolna: Ritoók 2005, 173-183; Budapest-íCána: Terei 2010, 81-112; Hajdúdorog-Kati-dűlő: Fodor 2005, 197-212. 70 Ruttkay 2005, 31-49. 71 Ritoók 2010, 477. 7. The present stage of the research of churchyards in the Transylvanian Basin Although his achievement bore international importance,72 mainly in the research of prehistory, the Roman era and the time of the Great Migration, no cemetery was excavated besides the early modern age cemetery in Alba Iulia. During the Roman era excavations in Moigrad a few graves were excavated by Árpád Buday indicating a cemetery, but this excavation was not continued (there were some stray anonym denarii finds from the 12th century too). However, as it has been mentioned above, the methodology of the excavations of churchyard cemeteries was defined by István Méri during World War II, based on his excavations in Chidea.73 The excavation carried out in the main square of Cluj in 1943 is connected to Méri too,74 where János Herepei had already collected eight hair rings with S-shaped end since 1927, which led to his removal from the university.75 As a result, this area of medieval archaeology did not yield too much in the field of the research of the cemeteries of the time of the Great Migration until the 1950s. Unfortunately, the situation has not changed too much up to this date as no site has been fully excavated for different reasons. As has been mentioned above, Kurt Horedt was the first who defined the upper chronological limit of these Christian cemeteries in the Romanian literature in 1958, based on the laws of King Ladislaus I and King Coloman the Learned.76 Based on our data collection carried out until the beginning of the autumn of 2013, we have managed to compile a data base (Fig. 4). 8. The geographical spread of churchyards in the Transylvanian Basin (Pl. 1) About the geographical spread of the cemeteries one can see that they can be found ranging from the northern part of the basin to the SE part of Transylvania. Their clusters only indicate the present stage of excavations. These churchyard excavations gained momentum when the early medieval castles were excavated in the 1960s 72 On Béla Postás archaeological school: Gáli 2013a, 128-160 (with all relevant literature). 73 Méri 1944, 3-4. 74 Méri 1986. 75 Herepei 2004, 82-83. 76 Horedt 1958a, 145.
