Folia archeologica 36.

Lovag Zsuzsa: Egy XI. századi bronz korpusz

212 ISTVÁN VÖRÖS In spite of the small number of finds available it can be observed that the horn-cores of early medieval Aurochs became smaller and shorter from South to North. The medieval bull horn-cores of Middle-Middle Norther European Aurochs are longer than the horns used for drinking-horns, while the diameter of their bases is also bigger. At the same time the horns of Aurochs cows were far smaller than the dimensions of horns used for drinking-horns (Table 4,5). The horn-cores dimensions of 9—10th century Aurochs bulls in the Carpathian Basin, especially the dimensions of their bases are larger even in absolute value, than the dimensions of the mouth of drinking-horns (Table 5). Therefore, Middle — Middle-Northern European drinking-horns could not have been made from the horns of this Aurochs population either from a territorial, or from a formal point of view. The drinking-horns listed above were manufactured after the 13/14th century extinction of Aurochs in Europe so that they could not have been made from Aurochs horns. Bison The horns and horn-cores of Prehistoric, Roman, and Medieval Bisons are, according to their specific characteristic, far smaller and shorter than those from the Aurochs. Table 5. contains the dimensions of two 17—18th century Hungarian drinking-horns (the so-colled Eszterházy and Bánffy drinking-horns)

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6 made of horns from Bison bulls. Both their length and the dimensions of their bases are conspicuously small. The diameter of the horn (max. diameter?) of a Transsylvanian Bison bull (the so-called "Miska" of Schönbrunn) is 108 mms.

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7 The dimensions of the two drinking-horns made of Bison horn and found in the grave of a 9—10th century Slavic prince at Chernaia Mogila (Ukraine) are unfortunately unknown, yet if their photographs

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8 may be relied on they are made of small size Bison horns. The drinking-horns mentioned above could not have been made of Bison horns because of their dimensions. I^ong-horned large wild cattle In my opinion the Middle and Middle-Northern European drinking-horns were made of the twisted or crescent-shaped horns of domesticated, semiwild, wild cattle, giant cow or bull, and not of Aurochs horns. These long-horned wild cattle were reared in the open-air. 6

6 Bökönyi, S., Zwei Trinkbecher aus Wisenthörnern. FA 12 (1960) 278—279. Taf. XLVI. 2., Abb. 74., Taf. XLVI. 1.; The Bison horns from the tresury of Győr Cathedral are smaller. In: Bökönyi, S., FA 16 (1964) 157—162. Fig. 71—73. 6

7 S^alay, B. A., Der letzte Wisent in Siebenbürgen.Verhandlungen und Mitteilungen des Siebenbürgischen Vereins für Naturwissenschaften zu Herrmannstadt. 66 (1916) 16. 6

8 Rybakov, B. A., Remeslo drevnej Rusi. (Moskva 1948) 283—290. Fig. 69, 70.