Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. A Szent István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 26. 1989-1992 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1997)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Bartosiewicz László: A Székesfehérvár Bestriary: Animal Bones from the Excavations of the medieval City Wall. p. 133–167.

Bones from the hind extramities of horses came to light during the course of excavations in the Rondella at site KL/1

. Some of these remains come from the same individual, although this can not be demonstrated by matching articular surfaces, except in the case of the tarsal bones. All the fused epiphyses of the bones (and a centrotarsal bone ossified to the metatarsus) indicate that they belonged to adult individuals, a fact which conforms with the role of horse as a military and draft animal. As far as the stature and type of these animals may be reconstructed from the two tibiae and two metatarsal bones that were brought to light, they ranged in terms of withers height between 140 and 150 cm. This may not be considered extremely tall but is slightly beyond the average for that period. Slendemess indices on these bones also raise the possibility that one of these horses was a gelding (the smallest breadth of the metatarsus is only 10.89 % of the greatest length measured on the same bone) as is suggested by an observation made by Bökönyi (1974) on metatarsus samples from various periods. The high level of Hungarian horse breeding is well documented from the 15th century (Szamota 1891; Gaál 1966). Although basic changes in type were brought about by crossings with Arabian type horses imported by the Turkish army, and the average withers height also probably decreased, such comparison naturally can not be carried out within this material. Dog Although dog is one of the most common domestic animals, only relatively few remains of these animals are known from later medieval times (Bökönyi 1974). The number of measurable characteristic elements is usually even smaller. This is why the four, more-or-less complete, dog calvaria found in the Turkish Period garbage pit at JM/1 are of particular interest. All these skull remains belong to adult individuals of various ages. This should be regarded as an illustration to the fact that dogs were not meat purpose animals during the period under discussion here. Moreover, the remains of decapitated dogs may usually be interpreted as the evidence of some sort of a ritual (Bartosiewicz 1994b), whose forms appeared even, in Christian times in Hungary (Vörös 1991). The same possibility is additionally confirmed by the occurrance of bones from the skeleton of one old individual. Three of the four skull remains are calvaria from relatively large individuals. Seven of the most important measurements taken on these calvaria have been compared to each other and to parameters of an impressively large archaeozoological collection of dog skulls from the Roman town of TácGorsium (Bökönyi 1984). Although it would be a mistake to seek real analogies between these two different sets of data, the unusually rich Roman sample, which also contains a number of varieties, is hopefully large enough to contribute to the statistical reliability of this analysis of the small material from JM/1

. An extremely large 15th or 16th century skull from the site of Túrkeve-Móricz was also included in the comparative analysis, which according to Bökönyi (1974), is similar to that of a komondor, a large Hungarian herding dog. All the Turkish Period dogs available in the JM/1 material were smaller than this specimen and even the "large" individuals fall short of average Roman dogs from Tác-Gorsium in terms of most measurements (only the palatal dimensions of the large skull with more-or-less intact viscerocranium exceed this average; Table XXVI). Withers height estimations using the humerus and femora of the large, old individual suggest a withers height of between 51.7 and 53.7 cm. Although a fragmennt of an even larger humerus was found at location AE, this estimated stature seems more-or-less typical of the four dogs represented in this Turkish Period cranial sample. Even the "small" dog may have been large enough to fall relatively close to this size category. Typological studies of the calvaria have relied on the comparison of cranial proportions. First, the basal length of the skull, represented by the neurocranium section, was reconstructed using a number of measurements in the comparative sample of Roman dogs (estimated values in the list shown in Table XXVI are marked by italics). Reconstruction of this skull's basal length was carried out in very much te same way as was done previously for the greatest length of the cattle radius {Table XXVII). Measurements expressed in the percent of basal length and standardized proportions

6 calculated for each dimension included in the analysis suggest that the total length of the "small" skull is relatively large with a broad brain case and narrow snout indicated by the breadth between the canines {Table XXVIII). The profile of the same individual also displays a steep forehead {PL VI). The neurocranium fragment, although larger, seems also have belonged to a gracile dog {PI. VIT), while the calvarium with a complete viscerocranium came from a much more robust animal. In addition to broad facial proportions, this dog also had a relatively straight profile line {PL VIII). The skull of the large, old individual lies closest to the average of the six cases used in this part of the study. Two of its cranial proportions (those of frontal breadth and breadth measured between the canines) resulted in 0 standard scores, that is they were equal with the mean value calculated for this small sample. The skull is also well 6 Standard scores express the proportion of difference between each individual value and the relevant mean value to the standard deviaton. In other words, they define the position of the individual proportion relative to the interval characterized by the mean value (0) and standard deviation (±1). 140