Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. A Szent István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 34. 2004 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (2005)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Zalai-Gaál, István: New evidence for the Cattle cult in the Neolithic of Central Europe. XXXIV. p. 7–40. T. I–XVII.

the portrayed animal cannot be determined or can only be identified tentatively. A look at the distribution of finds in the major Late Neolithic cultures of the Carpathian Basin reveals that six „types" of the various manifestations of the bull cult can be identified in the Vinca culture, eight in the TiszaHerpály culture and fourteen in the Lengyel culture: bull or cattle shaped schematic vessels, schematic bull horns in relief on vessels and vessel lids occur in all three cultures. Bucrania set on house walls and gables have been found on Vinca and Tisza-Herpály sites, although the house models with appliqué horns of the Lengyel culture can probably be taken to imply that the Lengyel population too adorned its buildings in this manner. The deposition of aurochs skulls in pits and houses, and of aurochs horns in pits is a typical practice of the Tisza-Herpály and Lengyel cultures, similarly to foundation deposits of aurochs and cattle skulls. Human burials with offerings of aurochs skulls, aurochs horns and aurochs bones are typical for the Lengyel culture, i.e. the practice of the cult is reflected in the use of aurochs and cattle skeletal parts, rather than in depictions. The above overview and the clusters of the histogram suggest that the various forms of the cattle cult practiced by Balkanic and Greek cultures form a single sedation group from the Early Neolithic to the Aeneolithic. The Staréevo and Körös cultures are definitely part of this group. Another group can be distinguished among the Middle and Late Neolithic cultures of the Carpathian Basin and Central Europe. The archaeological record confirms the earlier model that the Linear Pottery cultures of the Great Hungarian Plain and of Central and Western Europe adopted the ideology and the practice of the bull cult from the South-East European Early Neolithic and then moulded it to its own needs. This is all the more true of the Tisza-Herpály and Lengyel complex, which emerged under southern and south-eastern cultural impacts (Vinca culture) from the preceding local Linear Pottery cultures.

42 For the contacts between the South-East European Early Neolithic and the western Linear Pottery culture, cp. Kalicz 1994; Bánffy 2004, 269-297, 360-390; for the cultural impacts and the cultural and trade routes of the Vinèa and Sopot cultures, cp. Bánffy 1999 and 2001, with further references. 31