Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 4.-5. 1963-1964 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1965)

Közlemények – Mitteilungen - Fitz Jenő: A hasta in Gorsium. IV–V, 1963–64. p. 222–224.

A hasta ín Gorsium Excavations of the year I960 at T á с have uncovered an iron hasta and near to it a^bronze pipe in the territory of villa I.

1 The hasta is 23.5 cm long, its widest part measures 5.2 cm, its average thickness is 2—3 mm. It has blunt, thick edges, but no blade on either side; both its widening parts are somewhat thinner than the tapering central portion. The handle is solid, the socket is missing.

2 The bronze pipe found beside it is 18.3 cm long, its lower end is slightly widening, it has a 1.4 cm diameter here. A small funnel, having a diameter of 2.3 cm, joins its upper end. The side of the tube is ornamented with 2—3—4 lines, running round and equally distributed. A 1 mm thick ring with a diameter of 2.4 cm is attached to the funnel; the side adjoining the funnel is traight, its outer part is rounded off, a groove is running round inside it. The most probable destination of the tube and the attached ring may have been to hold the hasta: the handle of the same, somewhat thickened by rusting, rnay have fitted into the funnel originally. The lower part of the tube has been shaped in a manner which made its fixing into i handle possible.

3 Unfortunately the circumstances of the unearthing of the hasta do not enable us to draw definite conclusions. It was found under the floor level of villa I, constructed at the beginning of the fourth century, on the top of the wall rump of a temple, devastated in the second half of the third century but probably carried down et the beginning of the fourth cemturi only. Thus the position is secondary in any case; we are justified in reckoning the object to the inventory of the sanctuary or just as well to the autochtonous material of the earlier levels. All we can state definitely is -that the, hasta is xvo addition to the history of the fourth century settlement. The insignificant finding circumstances do not only prevent us from fixing the time limits exactly between which our hasta has been used, they also limit our investigation of its original destination to conjectures. A survey of the hitherto known hastae does not furnish essential information either.

4 Our specimen stands in the middle between the simpler, spearlike hastae

5 and the types ornamented with openwork or incision,

6 among which a bipartite arrangement, similar to our (hasta, is unrarely found. A somewhat similar specimen is known from Linz; is also lacks a fretted eye but it widens only at one part, forming a circle.

7 It differs from our T á с hasta also by ending in a socket at tlhe bottom. This hasta has been unearthed from a depth of 140 cm beside a well, from a level of the Early Imperial Age. Another Linz specimen is equally early, being found in an urn grave.

8 Should we date our hasta, similarly to the analogies from Linz, to the early phase of settlement, possibly to the first century, wc could not regard it as anything but the badge of a military office. The overwhelming majority of the known hastae come from the neighbourhood of the limes,

9 most of them J They have come to light in sector 1/5 b-d, in the depth of 28-6 cm, laying beside each other. 3 IKM inv. 61. 338. 1. 4 E. RITTERLING: BJb 125 (1919) pp. 9-37: G. BEHRENS: MZ 36 (1941) pp. 18-21; A. ALFÖLDI: AJA 63 (1959) pp. 25-27. 5 G. BEHRENS: op. cit. Pl. 18. have an undoubted military relation; on the other hand the first century is the period of the Roman settlement of T á с in which we have to reckon with the presence 6 Ibid. PI. 19. 7 P. KARNITSCH: Die Linzer Altstadt in römischer und vorgeschtlicher Zeit. (Linz 1962) Pl. 31. 1. 8 Jahrbuch der Stadt Linz (1962) XV/9. 9 See the papers enumerated is note 4. 222