Folia archeologica 23.

Tibor Kovács: Askoi, Bird-Shaped Vessels, Bird-Shaped Rattles in Bronze Age Hungary

IO T. KOVÁCS With consideration to the above, I believe that from the beginning of the second millennium B. C. the bird-cult had been continuous in the beliefs of the Bronze Age peoples of the Carpathian-basin. The significance of a culture, or the belief of an ethnic unit living in a greater region was primarily determined by the descent, economic life and social structure of it. The life of a cult determined by the above components was affected—in a periodically changing form

—directly (ethnic settlement), or indirectly (political, commercial relations) by influences arriving from outside. 2. It is essential, although owing to the scarcity of Hungarian data, difficult to state, whether the different existing types of birds can mean also different manifestations of the given cult. It may sound as a commonplace, it is nevertheless obvious that the primary function of askoi and bird-shaped vessels was to hold some liquid, and that of the rattles to make a noise. Let us see now what the data deriving from the comparison of the shape of the objects and the circumstances of their emergence refer to. The askoi which emerged east of the Danube (with the exception of the Tiszafüred one) are settlement-finds. Only in the territory of the people of the incrusted pottery can we find askoi buried in graves (Kecskéd, Papkeszi). Excepting the Nagyrév object which stands on four legs, the askoi have no legs. On many pieces, however, the handle is placed statically to serve to hang it up. Real handles for hanging up can only be found on two early Bronze Age pieces (Zók-Várhegy, Hosszúpályi). Early bird-shaped vessels are known from the sites of the Wietenberg and Vattina culture settlements, while those of the people of the incrusted pottery, of the Vatya culture, the Szeremle group and the Dubovac-Ckna culture have emerged from graves. Note that with two exceptions (Almásfüzitő, Törtei) each bird-shaped vessel is pedestalled or stands on legs. Only in the Vatya culture do we find handles attached to two vessels for hanging them up (Dunaújváros, Törtei), and in two ones from the late Bronze Age. The majority of bird-shaped rattles emerged from Transdanubian graves, or from cemeteries (Papkeszi, Királyszentistván, Veszprém-Bajcsy Zsilinszky street, Siófok-Széplak), only a few came from settlements (Lengyel, Harc). However, in the territories of adjacent cultures, with a single exception (Gelej), all the rattles emerged from settlement finds. Even though it is not possible to draw farreaching conclusions from the above some data, on the other hand, are worth consideration. Although, it is well-known that only few of the graves of the Hatvan culture remained in authentic conditions and only few of the settlements of the people of incrusted pottery are known at all. It is noteworthy that the askoi of the Middle Bronze Age have emerged from settlements on the territory where they were produced, and from cemeteries outside of it. Similarly: in the North-Transdanubian group of the people of incrusted pottery, the rattle only survived in cemeteries, whereas in other cultures from settlements. These data seem to confirm that different forms of the bird representations are partly or wholly the expressions of different content in the belief-world of a given prehistoric society. On the other hand, these facts are also expressive of the emergence of sociohistorical laws ; particularly of the fact that the changes resulting from the political or economic relations of a given social unit ("archaeological cultures") are less "pervasive" and happen less rapidly in spiritual than in material cultures. That is,