A Békés Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 21. (Békéscsaba, 2000)

Juhász Irén: Avar graves with horses in the north part of Békés County

Avar lovas sírok Békés megye északi területén Avar graves with horses in the north part of Békés County - Irén Juhász Résumé I outline the various forms of burials of the Avar graves with horses explored by me. The finding places are the followings: Endrőd-Kecskészug, Orosháza-Béke Cooperative sandpit, Orosháza-Bónum brick-factory, Szarvas-locality no. 68, Szarvas-locality no. 75. These graveyards are situated in the north third of the county. Out of the 958 explored Avar graves horse could be found only in 45 ones but almost all forms of this sort of burial could be observable. 1. Total horse and human skeleton in one grave beside each other could be found in 5 cases, only in the graveyard of Orosháza-Bónum brick-factory. 2. Total horse and human skeleton in one grave above each other could be found in 3 cases in the graveyards of Orosháza-Bónum brick-factory and Szarvas-locality no. 75. 3. Total horse and human skeleton in separate grave with opposite orientation could be found in 7 cases in the graveyards of Endrőd-Kecskészug, Szarvas-locality no. 75 and Szarvas-locality no. 68. In the latter one there were one horse each on both sides of the corpse. 4. Horse skeleton in separate grave in one axis with the human grave was in the graveyard of Szarvas-locality no. 68. 5. Individual horse-grave with the same orientation as the human graves occurred only once in the graveyard of Orosháza-Bónum brick-factory. 6. We meet two forms of partial horse-burial in the graveyard of the Orosháza-Béke Cooperative sandpit. One form when only several horse-bones were buried in the grave at the same time as the human body (3 cases), the other form when the horse remnants were put into the end of the grave, at the foot of the departed after a certain time, we call this after-burial. 7. We find symbolical horse-burial in 15 graves of the 50 chamber-graves explored in Szarvas-locality no. 68, and we meet this burial custom in 2 cases when the corpse buried in traditional pit. Here only the horse-furniture was buried: snaffle, stirrup and iron buckles belonging to the saddle. Irén Juhász Tessedik Sámuel Museum Szarvas Vajda Péter Street 1. 5540 99