Budapest Régiségei 14. (1945)
Nagy Lajos: Egy pincelelet az aquincumi polgárvárosban : a pannóniai agyag világítótornyocskák kérdése 155-202
Lantern-towers were manufactured in several Aquincum pottery workshops. To prove this, I only refer to the small quadrangular oven I excavated, found north to the Aquincum Museum, beside the Esztergom railway embankment. They also belonged to the great pottery-quarter which lay around the Gasworks of to-day. In one of these, I found the separate upper closing of a lantern-tower (fig. 37). The top of the upper arched pyramdial closing of the quadrangular tower was decorated with a dove. On the front part, there is a swastika impressed with a finger into the wet clay ; over it a thin incised cross can be seen. On one side there is a cup with two handles incised into the wet clay, on the other side, a serpent is visible. Their symbolism would deserve a special examination. Here we only want to establish the fact that the dove and the other symbols have partly an astral character and refer to immortality. We see here the reference to the life in the other world and the interpretation of our object, its use in the sepulchral sphere of ideas. It was a funerary ornament, or the upper part of a tower holding the sacrificial lamp at public or domestic obsequies. In this way, our quadrangular clay tower fragments as well as the round ones are connected with the representations of the funerary monuments and they mutually show the origin of their common'use and their frequent employment, just in the neighbourhood of Aquincum. As we have already indicated in connection with the round towers, the activity of the Aquincum pottery workshops points to the age of their fabrication. In the second part of the II nd century, they already appear and in the finds, in the different layers of excavation which are not exactly divided, they can be followed till the IV th century. But this indicates only the survival of our find material and not their having been manufactured at this time, which, in our opinion, did not happen later than the first half of the III rd century. The enamelled small fragment of a censer from Szombathely differs from the towers we described up to now. It was discovered during the excavations in the episcopal palace. This would be the latest specimen as is shown by its being enamelled. Further finds will perhaps show its connection to our objects ( 83 ). ILLUSTRATIONS Pig. Pig. Pig. Pig. Fig. Pig. Pig. Fig. 8. Fig. 9. Pig. 10. Pig. 11. Fig. 12. Fig. 13. Fig. 14, The lantern from Aquincum (reconstructed) in the Mus. of Aquincum. The lamp of the chariot-find from Kálóz in the Hungarian National Museum. Fragment of a tomb-stone from Szentendre with burning altar. (Szentendre,Town-Hall.) Fragment of a small terra-cotta altar in the Mus. of Aquincum. The lantern-tower (lighthouse) and altar found in the Papföld pottery quarter. Small lantern-tower from Aquincum. (Hungarian National Museum.) Tomb-stone from Aquincum with basket. Tomb-stone from Vereb (by the side of the tripod, a lantern. CIL III. 70340.) Tomb-stone from Vörösvár in the wall of the vicarage, with lantern. Fragment of a tomb-stone with lantern from the Belvárosi templom (Church of the Inner Town) in Pest. Fragmentary tomb-stone from Aquincum with lantern-tower. Fragment of a tomb-stone with lantern-tower. Lantern-tower from an Aquincum cellar-find. (Mus. of Aquincum.) Round lantern-tower from Aquincum. (Museum of Aquincum.) 201
