Budapest Régiségei 34. (2001)

STUDIEN = TANULMÁNYOK - Gróf Péter - Gróh Dániel: The watchtower of Visegrád-Lepence 117-121

inner plate bears the curved abrasion marks of the door. Placing the bushing further in can be explained by the narrowing of the entrance, which also can be confirmed by a mortar arch on the inner threshold stone plate. There was no known military reason for this narrowing, and it is also questionable whether it could be connected with the subsequent placing of the construction inscription (Fig L). Around the plate in the debris three heads of statues were also found. All of them can be considered as fragments, since the necks were all broken. Therefore, it is hard to determine whether they belonged to a full-size statue or were busts only. The most important piece is the head of a lady of remarkable status (height: 25 cm).

9 It has earrings with small globular hanging pieces. Her hair is arranged nicely and fixed by a hair net, with a couple of locks combed onto her temples. The nose is damaged, and the way the eyes were carved gave the face a suggestive look. After a thorough examination it became clear that this head was worked over subsequently. There are well-discernible chisel-marks near the nose and by the upper lip, as if an effort had been made to give it a hard masculine, sovereign character by removing the earrings and by the subsequent chiselling. The second head is representing a younger man, carved out of a different material, and with an inferior technique. He has curly hair, high forehead, and lifelike ears. The head is evenly worn out in its entire surface (height 23 cm). The third statue is more problematic. This is the lowest quality representation, showing a child with a fibula on his right shoulder, bearing the mark of a hand on his left shoulder. Chisel marks on both sides of the statue show that the child's figure was chiselled off from a gravestone testifying that it might have been part of a burial monument. On all the three heads traces of mortar were observed around the edges of the faces. Therefore we assume that the statue heads were partly walled in, thus hiding the earrings of the female head, for instance (Fig 2 a-b.). This picture became clearer when the body of the first head, the female one was actually found by accident. In the Aquincum Museum in Budapest there is a female grave-statue found in Óbuda, at Szemlőhegy in 1905.

10 The circumstances of realising that the head and the body match are described by Dániel Gróh, as follows: First I thought that according to the similar sizes the two parts might be identical. Then, while the statue was still in the show-case of the museum, I observed the similarities of the stone material and the line of the broken neck. According to my observations, it became quite sure that originally the two pieces were one, so I made an experiment. It was a moment of a lifetime for all those present when in March 1999 the two parts finally became one again (Fig 3.)\

n The explanation of the above described phenomena can be described like this: Those who (re)built the Visegrád watchtower to demonstrate their successful work, needed a construction inscription and three statue-heads, at least vaguely resembling the emperor and his co-emperors. They had the inscription written; they sent someone to find the heads; they then re-carved the first head most likely based on the portrait on a coin of Valentinian, and they put the inscription and the three heads into a mortar layer above the narrowed entrance. There are still several questions to be answered, such as the main reason for all these activities. A possibility can be the activity of the commander of the fort at Gizellamajor, 1,5 km from the watchtower; and a possible visit or news about the visit of Valentinian or some other high-ranking person to the region. But, as we do not have written evidence about anything like this, we cannot pursue our deductions any further at the moment. NOTES 1. GRÓF-GRÓH 1995. 61-68. 2. GRÓH-GRÓF 1996. 21-24; GRÓF-GRÓH 2000, u. p. 3. STEHLIN1957. Taf. 1.2 4. LŐRINCZ 1999. 53-68 5. DEGRASSI, 1952. 83. 6. SOPRONI 1978. 51-55 7. SOPRONI 1978. 53. 8. SOPRONI 1999. u. p. 9. KAISERZEITLICHE PORTRÄTS 70-71. 10. KUZSINSZKY 1906. 53; 67. 11. GRÓH 1999. 159-160. 118