A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve 2016., Új folyam 3. (Szeged, 2016)

RÉGÉSZET - Paluch Tibor: Újabb preszkíta sír Szeged-Öthalmon. Adatok a Kárpát-medence kora vaskori temetkezési szokásaihoz

Tibor Paluch

ENG

A new Preschythian grave from Szeged-Öthalom. Data on the Early Iron Age burial customs of the Carpathian Basin

Tibor Paluch

During the construction of the M43 motorway it was decided to exploit the area of Szeged-Öthalom as a sand quarry. Before the commencement of the extraction, test excavations and preventive excavations were carried out in the area between April and December 2009. An area of 63,000 m2 was investigated at the site of Szeged-Öthalom. About 350 archaeological features were documented in the excavated area.

The disc-shaped, bronze looped button found in situ in the centre of the forehead (PI. 4:1-2] may have decorated the costume of the deceased. Similar objects are common in the Prescythian material. Mostly they are found near the feet, beside the ankle. They may have served as decoration on footwear, and János Győző Szabó identified them as shoe-buttons. Based on the excavation data, however, they may have been attached not only to shoes and boots, but probably other elements of textile costumes as well.

The three, three-headed, ring-shaped bronze buttons represent a fairly rare type. They were found during the removal of the skeleton, in a line along the spine, ca. 25 cm from each other (PI. 4:4-6], Similar three-headed buttons have

been published from the Lower Danube region. Buttons for the fastening of clothes are a rarity in the material of the period. They appear more frequently as part of horse harness. This rare type (C/IXa] was dated recently by Carola Metzner-Nebelsickto the classic Novocherkassk phase, to the 8th century BC.

This new Prescythian grave from Öthalom strengthens the view based on the cemetery of Algyő and related finds (Öthalom, Lebő, Szőreg] that during the 8th-7th centuries a population of eastern origin lived in the vicinity of Szeged. The grave from Öthalom highlights this eastern relationship, since it represents a graves form with side niche that is known only from later periods in the Carpathian Basin. The origin of this grave form can undoubtedly be traced to the eastern steppes, and can be connected to the population that arrived from there. Thus, this supports the view that the population of the Mezőcsát culture was not a descendent of the local Late Bronze Age population, but they were a new, eastern immigrant group in the Great Hungarian Plain.

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