Balogh Csilla – P. Fischl Klára: Felgyő, Ürmös-tanya. A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Monumenta Archeologica 1. (Szeged, 2010)

The Avar Cemetery at Felgyő, Ürmős-Tanya

A Felgyő, Ünnös-tanyai avar kori temető 267 Pottery The number of burials yielding pottery is extremely low compared to the overall number of graves: no more than six graves (2.7%) yielded pottery. Two of these were child burials (Graves 32 and 112), two were female burials (Graves 42 and 234) and two were male burials (Graves 41 and 157).

y The graves containing pottery were scattered across the cemetery. A similarly low proportion of vessels was noted at Gátér (6 graves: 2.54%), Szeged-Fehértó B (5 graves: 3.8%), Asotthalom-Bilisics (1 grave: 4%), Csengele-Feketehalom (7 graves: 6%) and Szeged-Makkoserdő (22 graves: 6.5%). These burial grounds, where the deposition of pottery in the graves was not customary, all lie in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve, roughly in line with the Körös and Maros Rivers."

1 The vessel was set beside the skull in Grave 32; in the other burials, the pottery was found on the feet or next to the feet. There was no apparent pattern in the scatter of graves containing pottery. The vessels from the Felgyő cemetery were all handthrown. Small pots were deposited in Graves 32, 42 and 157. The vessels from Graves 41 and 112 have no analogies in the corpus of Avar period finds from the Carpathian Basin. Grave 41, a male burial, yielded a hand-thrown flask. There is a general consensus that ceramic flasks imitated the form of flasks made from organic material and that flasks were predominantly used by peoples pursuing a nomadic lifestyle (PESCEREVA 1959,275-278). With the exception of the piece from Gakovo-Brickyard in Serbia (ROSNER 1984, 82), most of the currently known flasks come from the Middle Tisza region (Map 1), the only exceptions being the pieces from Abony (MÁRTON 1904, 317, Fig 10a-c), Tószeg (ROSNER 1984, 84, Pl. V. 3-5), Martfű (VIDA 1999, Cat. no. 905) and Felgyő. The hand-thrown clay flasks of the Avar period found in the Carpathian Basin are all unique vessels, although the pieces from Felgyő and Martfű share a few similarities such as the amphora handle, which according to Tivadar Vida was a local trait (VIDA 1999, 172). The black painted herringbone pattern on the vessel's lower third is unparalleled in the grave pottery of the Avar period in the Carpathian Basin. The hand-thrown flask from Grave 112, a child burial, is likewise a unique piece. Comparable vessels are known among the metal vessels: the conical neck, flattened globular body and thick ring base find their parallels among the jugs of the Nagyszentmiklós Treasure (Jugs 1-6). Its best parallel is the handled jug of the Vrap Treasure (Fig. 4; BÁLINT 2004, Fig. 102). The burial can be assigned to the later Avar period on the basis of the dark brown melon seed beads. The stamp imitations on its base date the Vrap jug to before the last quarter of the 7th century (BÁLINT 2004, 268), meaning that the flask from Felgyő dates from a later period. The vessel fonn itself survived for a long time in the Balkans, indicated by a bronze jug found in a house dating from the later 9th century at Kostol in Serbia (MARJANOVIC-VUJOVIC 1987. Fig. 4). The flask in the Felgyő burial lay in the region of the feet, but some 30 cm higher than the floor of the grave pit (Fig. 3, Fig. 104. 5-6), suggesting that it may have been placed in the grave or the earth piled over the grave at a later date, as a later funerary offering. Burials with horse harness Three burials in the Felgyő cemetery contained complete horse harness sets or certain parts of a harness set. These burials did not contain horse remains and the harness sets or parts of it were either deposited in the grave simultaneously with the burial or at a later date." Grave 197 was the burial of an adult man. Iron strap distributors lay by the left thigh and the knee, and a strap ring was found between the legs, suggesting that the saddle had also been placed in the grave, probably on the legs of the deceased. Grave 143 was the burial of a young woman. A snaffle bit was found beside her left thigh. Grave 196 was also a female burial, in which various parts of a harness set were found in one heap by the right hand: a bit, a girth buckle and a ring for the surcingle, the latter suggesting that a saddle had also been placed in the grave. Harness sets or their pieces can be regarded as funerary offerings, a custom with a symbolic meaning. The practice of depositing harness sets in the grave has been documented most often in the Körös-Tisza-Maros area, as well as in the Upper Tisza region and in Transdanubia, although to a lesser extent in the latter two regions (BENDE 2000, 253-254, Fig. 18). From her analysis of the concentrated occurrences of burials of this type in the Körös-Tisza-Maros area, Lívia Bende dated the appearance of the practice of depositing horse harness in burials to the mid-7th century or slightly later (BENDE 2000, 254). However, the burial with horse harness brought to light at Tass-Milestone 38 indicated that this practice may have appeared earlier in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve, around the start or the middle of the second third of the 7th century (BALOGH 2002,310-311). Together with Grave 187 of the Felgyő cemetery, we now know of five Early Avar burials with horse harness from the Danube-Tisza Interfluve, all lying in the narrow zone along the Danube and the Tisza Rivers (BALOGH 2009, Table 2 and Map 3): Mali Idjos Grave 70 (GUBITZA 1907, 357-358), Szeghegy, Tass-Milestone 38 (BALOGH 2002, 310-311) and DunavecseKovacsos-dülő (BALOGH 2009, 19, Table 2). The Szeghegy burial (SOMOGYI 2002), Grave 197 of the Felgyő cemetery and the Dunavecse burial (the latter yielding pressed silver double shield shaped mounts, an iron sword and the counterpart of the Byzantine jug found at Csengele-Jójárt) all confirm the existence of this burial custom in the Early Avar period, as do Graves 21 and 39 of the Kölked-Feketekapu A cemetery (KISS 1996, 25-26, 29, Taf. 21-22, 26, Taf. 110. 1-9, Taf. 111.8). The light yellow and light khaki coloured segmented beads from Grave 143 of the Felgyő cemetery and the small melon seed beads strung among the other beads of the necklace from Grave 196 can be dated to the close of the 7th century. Most of the burials containing horse harness dating from the later Avar period came to light in the Körös-Tisza-Maros 9 For the vessel in Grave I OS, ep. note 24 on p. 203. I 0 In contrast, about one-half of the burials contained pottery in the cemeteries lying other areas of the Danube-Tisza Interfluve (the Solt Plain and north-eastern Bácska). I

I For a detailed discussion of burials containing harness sets and a list of the sites in the Carpathian Basin, cp. BENDE 2000, 253 254; for an overview of the burials in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve, cp. BALOGH 2009. Some of the burials with harness sets also contained a horse tooth or a horse bone attribute, providing incontestable proof for the latter's symbolic- meaning: a horse tooth was found among the harness articles in Grave 125 of the Pitvaros cemetery (BENDE 2000.243 244,254), while a horse astragalus and a horse hoof lay in Grave 420 of the Szarvas-Grexa Brickyard cemetery (JUHÁSZ 2004. 62).