KOVÁCS TIBOR: TUMULUS CULTURE CEMETERIES OF TISZAFÜRED / Régészeti Füzetek II/17. (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Budapest, 1975)

III.Some considerations on the cemeteries

also in the grave. — 1. Gold plated bronze hair loop, it has been bent bronze plate and consists of three boatshaped pieces, with etched line pile.? This worked out bronze base was covered by gold plate, and after hammering this on, the pattern of the bronze base was etched in it also, L: 2,2 cm (PI. 34. D/l.). 2. Bronze hair loop, (Three pieces) bent of thin wire, deformed (Incompl.) (PI. 34. D/2.). 3. Bronze spiral tube (Five pieces) twisted of semicircular wire, L: 2,5 cm (PI. 34. D/3.). 4. Shell bead, (Twenty seven pieces) the wider part was bored through, L: 1,1 — 1,4 cm (PI. 34. D/5.). 5. Fayance bead, (Two pieces, one disintegrated) flattened globeshaped, 0: 1 cm (PI. 34. D/5.). 6. Cup, grey, the rim is raised across the handle, and has Five small knots on it bulge. Its base is profiled (Incompl.) H: 10,4, R0: 9, B0: 6,2 cm (PI. 34 D/6.). III. SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CEMETERIES 1. BURIAL CUSTOMS In order to get a realistic picture of the source-material value of the introduced cemetery sections, we must consider several points of views. Primarily, that the intensive search into the Tumulus Culture is only two decades old in Hungary. No large scale excavation has been carried out at extensive settlements

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7, most of the sourcematerial comes from cemeteries. It is true, that excavations of smaller cemetery sections have been reported already in the last decades of the 19 century

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8, but truly authentic, considerable sized cemeteries have been excavated only in recent years. Among these the Tápé cemetery needs to be mentioned first, with its 680 excavated graves

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9, e. g. the Maklár (151 graves)

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0, and the Letkés (55 graves)

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1 cemeteries. The Rákóczifalva (67 graves)

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2, Mezőcsát (40 graves)

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3, and Jánoshida

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4, cemetery sections imply very promising possibilities for analysis trom another point of view. These sites are all located east of the Danube, whereas the number of the sites of the Tumulus Culture have not risen west of the Danube

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. This shows that important steps can be taken presently in searching for the Tumulus Culture in Hungary from the objects coming to light primarily from the Great Plains

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6. Part of this are the 371 graves of Tiszafüred, but these differ considerably from the mentioned cemeteries of the Plains. A. The burial site contains three, roughly 1 km diametered area, where the graves are located (Majoroshalom, Kenderföldek, Fertőihalom).Their original extent could have been different, but the presently available grave numbers do not show their true differences in size, only the rate of their exploration. Furthermore we must mention, that the data concerning the cemeteries give only a one sided view of the Late Bronze Age people of the Tiszafüred area since we have no knowledge about their settlements in the area excavated at the moment. For this reason, we must assume, at least theoretically, that all three cemeteries have belonged to three different P settlements

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7 B. The areas of all three Late Bronze Age Tumulus Culture cemeteries is the same with the previously settled people' Middle Bronze Age (Füzesabony Culture) cemeteries. Since there are many such heights, sandy hills rising from the river flats of the Tisza, which could have served as buriel sites, it must not be an accident that the new population used the burial sites of the original inhabitants. We know many other sites where the end of the Middle Bronze Age people shared with the beginning Late Bronze Age people burial sites, both east and west of the Danube (Egyek, Kiskunmajsa—Kőkút, Siófok—Széplak)

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8. The continuity of the burial sites can also be due to the topographical and hydrographical conditions of a given environment. In most cases though we must think of the groups of the original inhabitants who remained in the newly occupied territories with the new rulers; not only because of the physical existence of the occupied, but because their customs and traditions were carried on also. I believe we could list among these the burial sites also, an expression of respect towards the dead in their burial rites, which even with their slight differences, beyond a certain point, more or less were similar or identical. This in itself represented a safeguard for the respect of burial sites used by different people. 40