Folia archeologica 24.

Tibor Kovács: Representations of Weapons on Bronze Age Pottery

24 T. KOVÁCS Summarizing what was said about the Tiszafüred daggers following facts are to be stated: a) daggers with mid-rib and shoulders broken in angles are a new form in Eastern Hungary in the 15th century B.C.;

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8 b) they are doubtless local productions, their model is, however, to be sought in the Aegean metallurgy; c) among the Hungarian wooden-hilted bronze daggers they represent a type formally the closest to the schematic dagger representation of the Mende jar. Possible variations of material counterparts of the dagger represented on the Dunaújváros jar (Fig. 6) are collected by János Makkay. Referring to the formal variations of swords, classified by N. Sandars as types Aegean Е

и resp. F, he identifies the Dunaújváros dagger as the representation of a Mycenaean type specimen.

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9 There are, however, facts contradicting this identification based on some detail affinities, as rivets on the fanning-out butt; the majority of these swords and dagger-swords (Types E

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( and F) are namely known from find complexes dated to periods LH III B, resp. C, having been in use at best in the 13th century B.C. and even later.

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0 These types did not reach, besides, the Carpathian basin on a direct route neither do we know their imitations as yet. Tanged bronze swords did not penetrate into our country from South East Europe but, through the Tumulus culture, from Central Europe.

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1 Tanged bronze daggers of the so-called Peschiera type and the swords with T-shaped haft plates, whose preliminary forms, transmitted by Italian cultures, are to be found in the Aegean swords of similar shapes and termed by N. Sandars as Type F, appear consequently.

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2 Any of these latter types are later in time than our clay daggers. The Mycenaean contacts of the Dunaújváros dagger, determined on the way of typology, are therefore questionable and, at least in the contexts outlined by J. Makkay, unacceptable for us. There is no doubt, furthermore, about the Dunaújváros jar as well as the Mende one being local wares. Admitting that the clay daggers, represented on the jars, are copies of real bronze weapons, what we took for our starting point, the makers of the pottery pieces must have known them. Dagggers of Mycenaean type could not have been copied except in communities possessing these, or where the population, at least partly, immigrated from areas where this 4

8 Grave B

e

5 of the Tiszafüred graves in question yielded among others a pin with an unadorned, ball-shaped head, pierced obliquely, which type became widespread in our territory mainly in the second period of our Middle Bronze Age [cf. Bona, I., Annales Univ. Bp. Sect. Historica 2(1961), chronological table after p. 20] i.e. they were frequently in use during the 15th century. Cf. Mo^solics, A., Bronzefunde etc. 82; Hansel, В., Beiträge zur Chronologie der mittleren Bronzezeit im Karpatenbecken. (Bonn 1968) 77-78; among the grave goods of the same burial there is a solid gold lock ring of ovoid shape, which can be dated, on ground of the detailed analyses of Amália Mo%solics, to the 15th century as well. Goldfunde etc. 20-22. As shown in our short analysis, we cannot assume a direct Aegean origin for the Tiszafüred bronze daggers, we have to remark here, nevertheless, the opinion of N. Sandars, according to which some of the swords of types both A and B, though made in their bulk in the 16th century B.C., were in use in the 15th century as well: Later Aegean bronze swords. AJA 67(1963) 17. 4

9 Makkay, J., op. cit. 23-24. 5

0 Sandars, N. K., Later Aegean etc. 133-139. 5

1 Cowen, J. D., The origins of the flange-hilted swords of bronze in Continental Europe. PPS 32(1966) 263-264, 285-289; Mo^solics, A., Arch.Ert. 95(1968) 61-64; Had., Arch.Ért. 99(1972) 188-190, 202. 5

2 Mo^solics, A., Some remarks on "Peschiera" bronzes in Hungary. In: The European community in Later Prehistory. (London 1971) 60-66.