Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 34-35. (2014-2015)
Articles
20 S. Berecki In 2002 three wheel-thrown (a body and two base) and five hand-made fragments were added to the collection from Rácodul de Sus-Somosalja (Pl. 6/6), from the limestone hill situated in front of the Somostető, on its side facing the Sóskút Creek. Lastly, from Rácodul de Sus-Durduja10 three large, hand-made, brown coloured rim and body fragments of Late Iron Age pots are kept. The wares were tempered with crushed potsherds and sand and they were decorated with impressed bosses, impressed cordons and simple cordons (PL 6/7-9). Although the finds are scarce and the circumstances of discovery are less professional, several statistical observations can be made. Regarding the shapes of pottery, one can note the preponderance of pots, only one deep bowl is documented from cave 9, a cup is known from cave 11 and a wheel-thrown bowl and a handled cup from cave 23. From cave 33 a fine chalice and a handled ware, probably a pitcher is kept, while from cave 57 a wheel-thrown pitcher is known. From several caves (14, 27, 36, 80, 87, 106) only pots were collected. The preponderance of cooking and storage wares is general characteristic of the Late Iron Age sites, while their exclusive appearance in some of the caves can be connected to the use of these natural places as shelters or refuge places. The vast majority of the wares from the caves are hand-made; only from cave 11, 23 and 57 five wheel-thrown fragments are known. The wheelthrown pottery is rare in the case of the sites from Mere§ti and Rácodul de Sus, too, but in contrast to the finds from the caves, wheel-thrown wares are documented for each settlement. The ornamentation of the Late Iron Age pottery from the sites of the Värghi§ Ravine is not too diversified, and it can be connected rather to the utility of the wares than to the ornamental technique, pattern use or aesthetical talent of the potters. The most common elements are the impressed cordons, bosses, incisions, impressed rims, impressions and the combination of these patterns; polished pared waved lines could be observed only on a wheel-thrown footed bowl from Merenti. The temper materials are the ones specific for the period: sand, coarse sand, crushed potsherds, slime and seldom organic materials. Regarding their chromatic, most of the fragments are brown or dark grey. The firing is mainly oxidizing, only 10 Costea 1996, 48-54, fig. 28-32. a few - and exclusively wheel-thrown - pots had reducing firing. Many fragments had calcareous deposits on their surface; in some cases because of the thickness of this stratum, even the original colour of the fragment could not be established. Only in the cave 1200/33 there are no preserved calcareous fragments, despite the fact that from this cave a large number of Late Iron Age pottery is kept in the collection. Calcareous sedimentation suggests that the potsherds had been for a long time on the surface, which is due to the usually slow process of sedimentation and soil layer formations inside the caves. Almost all of the sites yielded potsherds with traces of secondary burning from the period of their use. In some cases these could be observed on the exterior of the wares, in other cases these were on the interior, while in the case of four pots from cave 1200/87 secondary burning could be observed on the interior of the rims. On the margin of the Late Iron Age pottery from the Dénes-collection found in the caves of the Värghi§ Ravine the question arises as to what purpose the contemporary communities used these isolated natural spaces. It is generally accepted, that regardless of the historical period or region, the caves were permanent, seasonal, periodic or strategic settlements, workshops, cultic or hoarding places or funerary sites,11 with analogous examples in historical books of the Bible12 and in the Greco-Roman mythology.13 * * Occasionally, the function of the caves might have been more complex. There are examples throughout Europe for sheltering in caves of the individuals displaced or discriminated by the society, in other cases the caverns were the habitat of persons or families of low social status. The function of the caves and the classification of the individuals or communities who used them can be further refined if the accessibility of the caves, their natural environment or cavescape’, their orientation, the temperature, the degree of human intervention or analyses of the organic materials, faunal and floral objects are taken into consideration. In this respect, for some regions it could be 11 Petrescu 2000, 78-83, 88. 12 Abraham bought a cave for the funerary of his wife and after his death he was also buried there (Genesis 23); Lot and his daughters fled in a cave (Genesis 19), men of Israel fled from the Philistines in caves (1 Samuel 13), David hid from King Saul in a cave (1 Samuel 22). 13 The cults of Pan, Bacchus, Pluto, Mithras, Sibyls and Nymphs often were held in caverns, other caves served as oracles.
