A Herman Ottó Múzeum évkönyve 53. (2014)

Régészet - Tóth Krisztián: Noteworthy Findings of the Roman Age and Early Migration Period from Borsodszirák, Northestern Hungary. First Investigations

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Tóth Krisztián

Ceramic fragments with zigzag pattern running between rows of diagonally incised lines (Fig. 5. 1) have good parallels from House B (SFB) of the site of Szob, Öregfalu (Bóna 1963, Tafel XLVL 10), which the author dated to the first half of the third century A. D. after parallels from Poysdorf and Mittelhof (Bóna 1963, 282). The other potshaped vessels belong to the so-called gritty pots, of which the archaeological research have dealt with less, therefore finding exact parallels is not a simple task. Although they are generally described as coarse pottery, it is important to note that a distinction can be made between them based on the amount of the inclusions they contain. An abundant amount of grain sand can be found in the grey lid-grooved pot-shaped vessel (Fig 5. 2), which is well-sorted. This may have been added by the potter in order to obtain favourable using properties, and thus we can call it temper. The same can be said of the other two vessels (Fig 5. 4—5), which contain common amounts of sand. The presence of small pebbles and moderately sorted sand can tell us that the potter has not filtered the sand used for tempering, therefore small gravel may have got into it, or the clay has not been cleaned, so gravel have remained in the raw material. In the case of the two vessels, which only contain a moderate amount of sand (Fig 5. 3, 6) it is much more difficult to decide whether it was human impact or not. Pieces similar to the grey lid-grooved pot-shaped vessel (Fig 5. 2) can be found in the late Roman material of Tokod (Lányi 1981, Abb. 1). Although the shaping of their rims is a little bit different from the Borsodszirák one, it undoubtedly belongs to this type. Such vessels have been revealed at Bölcske, in the Danube riverbed, which the author — though with few parallels - dated to the end of the fourth century, rather to the beginning of the 5th century A. D. (Gaál 1998, 26). Such vessels are also known from Vác, Csörögi- rét, which enabled Eszter Istvánovits and Valéria Kulcsár to analyse this type, and they also dated them to the end of the fourth century, beginning of the fifth century A.D. (Istvánovits-Kulcsár 2005, 987- 988). A vessel with an almost same profile has been revealed at Stúrovo from the 06/06a building (SFB) (Beljak—Kölnik 2008, Fig. 5, 13), which the authors dated to the beginning of the Migration Period, to the D1 period (Beljak—Kölnik 2008, 67). This gritty ware was the most characteristic pottery of the large Sarmatian pottery centre of Üllő, which spread across the Barbaricum during the fourth and fifth centuries, from the Przeworsk culture across the Sarmatians to

the Santana de Mures-Chernyakhov culture in Ukraine and Romania (Istvánovits-Kulcsár-Mérai 2011, 367). They can be found in the Germanic territory of West Slowakia. In East Bohemia have been also discovered this type of pottery from Cholina (Tejral 2012, Fig 9. 14 with further literature).

Bowls and plates

During the field surveys, we have both revealed decorative and simple designed pieces of this type of ceramic ware.

1. It is a wheel-made bowl with straight, swelling, rounded rim. Its basic material is well prepared and its surface is covered with slip. Its outer and inner surface is red, while it is burnt in a fully oxidising atmosphere (Fig. 6.1). The inner side is broken, so the thickness of its wall cannot be measured, while the outer diameter of the rim is 24 cm.

2. It is a wheel-made plate with straight, swelling, rounded rim. Its basic material is well prepared and its surface is covered with slip. Its outer and inner surface is red, while it is burnt in a fully oxidising atmosphere (Fig. 6. 2). The thickness of its wall is 7.5 mm, while the outer diameter of the rim is 30 cm.

3. It is the base fragment with ring of a wheel- made bowl. Its basic material is well prepared and its surface is covered with black slip, it contains rare mica. Its outer and inner surface is grey, while it is burnt in an oxygen-reduced atmosphere (Fig. 6. 7). The diameter of the ring of the base is 6 cm.

4. It is a wheel-made bowl with vertically overbending, rounded rim, on which a smoothed zigzag motif runs around. It is polished from the motif to the edge. In its well-prepared basic material a rare amount of well rounded, fine sand can be found, which could be originally part of it, and it is rich in mica. Its outer surface is dark grey, its inner surface is grey, and the red core is framed by grey lines. It is burnt in an oxidising atmosphere, which was tamped at the end of the firing (Fig. 6. 3). On the outer surface marks of wheel-throwing and calcite crust can be observed, which latter can be also found on the section. The thickness of its wall is 6 mm, while the outer diameter of the rim is 25 and the internal is 22 cm.

5. It is a wheel-made bowl with bended over, facetted, tapered rim. In its poorly prepared basic