Marta, Liviu (szerk.): Satu Mare. Studii şi comunicări. Seria arheologie 26/1. (2010)

Carola Metzner-Nebelsick - Carol Kacsó - Louis D. Nebelsick: A Bronze Age ritual structure ont he edge of the Carpathian Basin

A Bronze Age ritual structure on the edge of the Carpathian Basin

Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege and the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany The goal of this project is to summarize and publish the excavations and surveys carried out to date which have so far only been made available in the form of preliminary reports as well as to make a comprehensive map of the necropolis combining a modem georeferenced plan of the surviving barrows, geophysical prospection with information from past surveys. Moreover a modern reference excavation was planned in order to help interpret information from older excavations but above all in order to obtain stratified material for radiometric dating.

In the summer of 2007 tumulus 26 was chosen for excavation not only because it lies in the centre of the cemetery but also because of an ongoing threat to the site posed by ploughing, agrarian road building and drainage works. The mound had a stretched oval 30 x 40 m diameter. It is however only 60cm high due to massive agrarian erosion which has removed much of the upper fill of the mound. The results of first year’s test trenches in the centre of the mound made it clear that this barrow was not primarily a funeral monument but rather a complex structure involving phases of monumental constructions, mass deposition of pottery burning and mound building. Further excavation, but also the results of geomagnetic prospection by Lukasz Pospieszny und Mateusz Jaeger (Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza in Poznan) revealed a long rectangular inner feature as well as an extensive complex of features outside of the barrow.

Our decision to open larger significantly larger areas in the summer of 2009 enabled us to understand the structure and stratigraphy of the mound much more clearly. Our present state of knowledge allows us to reconstruct at least three major phases of construction of which at least the first two are characterized by monumental buildings erected one on top of the other and sharing the same orientation and lay out.

The first phase of activity on the site is still not fully understood as it its remains at the base of the mound are still largely unexcavated. Yet the general course of the development of this monument can be summarized here. It seems that both vegetation and humus were removed or perhaps better cleansed, before the building of the monument was begun on a flat spur overlooking the Lăpuş valley. First an oval mound made of whitish loam, the natural subsoil, was erected. This served as a platform on which a rectangular building was built. In 2007 a section of this wooden construction could be unearthed (fig. 3), it seems to have been part of a parallel sided building with exterior walls resting on sill beams with lateral entrances. This building was burnt, and judging from the lack of debris inside one may assume that this was done deliberately. It had a central hearth and as in the case of its successor it was accompanied by large flanking pottery packings outside the building made of masses of broken pottery which had accumulated before and perhaps during the destruction process.

After it was burnt this structure was covered with a thick multilayered packet of natural sub-soil, forming a second and larger oval mound, on which a new building as erected. This second major phase of construction is the best understood (fig. 4). A long rectangular 22 x 11 meter building occupies the largest part of the centre of the oval platform and is at least 22 m long. The outer walls of the structure rested on sill beams and were supported by additional posts. A line of deep posthole pits in the middle of the building can be interpreted as the support for the ridge beam of the building’s pitched roof. Two extensions of the outer walls 11

11 We further whish to thank the Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for their funding and support of the project; the county government of the Jud. of Maramureş for additional support; photography: Oliver Thiel (Free University Berlin) and Susanne Spindler (Free University Berlin); surveys and geophysics: Mateusz Jaeger (Adam-Mickiewicz University Poznan), Michael Kralisch (Humboldt University Berlin), Ken Massy (LMU Munich), Lukasz Pospieszny (Adam-Mickiewicz University Poznan), Simone Reuß (LMU Munich), Ulrich Schultz (now University of Bamberg); scientific analyses: Tornász Goslar (l4C-Laboratory Poznan), Franz Herzig (wood analysis, Dendro-laboratory Thierhaupten, Bavarian Office for Monument Protection), William Shotyk (Isotope analysis of pollen, University of Heidelberg); we also wish to thank the trench supervisors: Roman Brejcha, Veronika Jell, Stefan Kaminski, Aleksandra Knapik, Grzegorz Lyszkowicz, Tobias Mörtz and Aleksandra Osihska as well as the Landesamt für Archäologie Sachsen for additional support in the starting phase of the project and all students and other contributors and last but not least the people of Lăpuş who excavated with us and supported our activities.

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