Folia archeologica 24.

Tibor Kovács: Representations of Weapons on Bronze Age Pottery

WEAPONS ON BRONZE AGE POTTERY 25 type was in use. According to the present state of research in the case of the Vatya culture neither possibility comes into question. The present attempt for identifying the daggers represented with types of objects yielded as far meagre results; this can be due to the fact that not all types, used in the 15th to 14th century B.C. are represented among the daggers known from our Middle Bronze Age (cf. Fig. 10. nos. 1-6; - 9 - after I. Bona -; 10, 16). We have, besides, to take into consideration that the bronze daggers used as models might have been deformed when modelled in clay.

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3 According to the representations on pottery, the daggers were carried in different ways. The Mende one lies about the "waist", pointing to a dagger worn in the belt (Fig. 2). We have gone through the Early and Middle Bronze Age inhumation burials of Hungary; as for the position of the daggers the stratified graves show following picture: about 60 per cent of the daggers were placed in the hand or near to the hands of the deceased, 30 per cent about the pelvis, 10 per cent on other places of the body.

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4 The Tiszafüred cemetery of the Füzesabony culture, embracing more than 600 burials, shows a somewhat different picture: from the 15 daggers unearthed eleven were near the hands, three about the pelvis and one at the knees. The conclusion can be drawn accordingly that during the Middle Bronze Age the place of the dagger in the grave was, in the majority of the cases, determined by the rites, as the weapons was put in the hand of the dead, ready for an after-life use. The rest of the daggers found point to the fact that they were buried, almost without exception, according to the everyday wearing of the weapon. As for this period we have no direct proofs for the carrying of the daggers in sheats or stuck in the belt, though there are signs pointing in this direction. It is worth mentioning that the first belts, made of rather wide bronze sheets, appear here as late as the 13th century B.C.

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5 Belts of leather or probably felt, fastened with bone or bronze buckles, were in fashion previously;

5" the latter ones, made of a rather elastic material, were suitable for wearing daggers stuck under. A far parallel to it, though not to be passed over from the point of view of wearing, is to be found on a stele of Grave V of the Mycenaean Grave Circle A.

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7 The Dunaújváros representation (Fig. 6), explained by János Makkay as a dagger worn on a shoulder strap, shows a different way of wearing.

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8 From the analogies, quoted by Makkay, only the Trojan and Cernavoda pieces can be brought in connection, the others being much later than the Dunaújváros jar. The hypothesis, seemingly so attractive, is also questionable for the following reason: if the dagger is attached to a shoulder strap, why is it not to be found at the appropriate place of the vessel, i.e. between the two arms ? This can be hardly 5

3 In other cases, when imitating objects for sacral or sepulchral use, the copies show but a superficial likeness to the original ones, details are summarized, as e. g. in the case of the miniature bronze daggers, found at Piliny. Натре/, J., A bronzkor emlékei Magyarhonban. (Bp. 1886) Pl. LXX, 4-6; Kemenczei, T., Acta Arch.Hung. 19(1967) 229, Fig. 18, 4-5, 12. 5

4 Due to the territorial spreading of inhumation burials the majority of our data refers to burials of Middle Bronze Age peoples east of the Danube. 5

5 Trogmayer, O., MFMÉ 1958-1959. 53-59; Id., FA 17(1965) 53-55. 5

6 Bona, L, Arch. Ért. 86(1959) 49-54. 5

7 Marinatos Sp. Kreta und das mykenische Hellas. (München 1959) 108, PI. 147. 5

8 Makkay, ]., op. cit. 24-26.