Szőllősy Csilla - Pokrovenszki Krisztián (szerk.): Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis - Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei. C. sorozat 45. (Székesfehérvár, 2017)

Tanulmányok/közlemények - Régészet - Keszi Tamás: A nagyrévi kultúra szimbolikus ábrázolásokkal díszített urnái Kiapostag - Dunai-dűlő lelőhelyről. Alternatív javaslat a Budapest - Pannonhalmi úti edény ábrázolásának értelmezésére

Tamás Kes%i: Cinerary urns from the Nagyrév Culture ornamented with symbolic representations found at the Kisapostag - Dunai-dűlő site

Magdolna Vicze believes that symbolic motifs transformed these everyday objects into special vessels, and at the same time indicated the particular role of their users.63 Perhaps the objects belonged to a specific social group that had exclusive access to such objects or to the rimais during which they were used. Furthermore, it is possible that these rights and special roles were hereditary.

This statement covers three hypotheses:

a) The hypothesis that the special ornamentation transformed these objects into special vessels has a high probability, which also draws attention to phenomena that remain to be examined in detail by researchers of the Nagyrév Culture.

None of the objects found at these settlements in a known archaeological context show signs of any special procedure or treatment that would have accompanies their withdrawal from use. It is not possible to decide what the reason was for this: there was no special treatment at the end of their life cycle or the lack of archaeological evidence.

In some respects, burial vessels are considered to be special a priori. But, as we have seen, some of them have lost their handle during use, and probably only became a burial accessory in the second place. We do not know to what extent their original ‘everyday’ function was a mix of sacred and profane aspects; i.e. we do not know anything about the context in which they were originally made and used.64 In this secondary function, their use was identical to that of ‘broom-stroked’ pots whose parallels are known from households. There are no visible signs on these urns that would set these objects apart from the profane world.65 They may have been particularly made to be used in burial ceremonies and their preparation was accompanied by special procedures or rites that did not leave an archaeological trace. But it is also possible that some of them became an urn through ‘recycling’, and we do not know whether they were originally used for profane or sacred purposes.66

b) The hypothesis regarding the people who use these objects is difficult to substantiate with additional arguments. It is certain that religious specialists also existed in the communities that created the Nagyrév Culture. It is less certain, thought, whether these vessels adorned with symbolic representations can be linked exclusively to these religious specialists, or to some other high-priority group.

The shape of the vessels in question is rather varied (hanging vessels, mugs, cups, vessels used as containers/urns, that is, they cannot be considered as special accessories of a particular ritual. We do not know which phenomena and rituals belonged to the private sphere in the belief system of the Nagyrév Culture, and which ones required the entire community to cooperate, and therefore it can be assumed that certain central regulations applied to them.

There are hardly any processed and published cemeteries, not to mention any ancient settlement parts, which could be used to study the distribution of vessels with symbolic ornaments within the site. Cemeteries with a higher number of graves that have been, at least partially, published have not been analysed from this aspect so far.

The contents of grave No. 100 in Kisapostag were scanty: only ‘mandatory’ grave goods were buried with the dead: besides the mug and a bowl, it did not contain any vessels or bronze objects. The situation is similar in the case of grave No. 38, where the absence of metals is further emphasised by the fact that grave No. 39 next to it abounds in metals — six different kinds of artefacts were found in the grave. Although this could indicate some sort of hereditary status, but graves with lots of metal grave goods were also found in other groups of graves which had no connection with any symbolic representations. That is, the accessories beside the urn do not support the assumption that the dead played, in whatever sense, a special role in society. The location of the graves does not indicate, either, special personalities: each of them is consistent with the line of graves characteristic of the larger cemeteries from the Nagyrév/Vatya Culture.

c) The third hypothesis says that the ornamentation of these vessels conveyed information to other members of the community, since they made the vessels capable of indicating the special role of their user. Again, we must refer to a lack of knowledge about the context of use: we do not know who and for what kind of activities used these objects, and therefore we do not know whether or not the situation was likely to convey information to other members of the community. We are not aware, either, whether the communication was addressing people or perhaps ghosts.

So, similarly to how a crucifix found in a Medieval cemetery does not suggest that its holder was a religious specialist,67 and not even necessarily reflects this person’s financial and social situation,68 we cannot draw such conclusions from a technically quite simple ceramic artefact, which could have been produced locally by many people, especially that its

63 VICZE 2009, 312-314.

64 Regarding the archaeological and use context, see: BRADLEY 2009, 41—43.

65 This is also characteristic of the composition of groups of finds defined as vessel deposits or sacrificial pits: KALICZ-SCHREIBER 1981; SCHREIBER 1984b; BALOGH 1997; H. HANNY 1997; TÓTH 1999.

66 See note No. 45.

67 RÉVÉSZ 2010, 191.

68 SZÉLL 1941, III. t. 4, VI. t. 4—5. Based on the funerary equipment, some crosses were found in tombs of little girls in the graveyard at Szentes; in the second case with quite poor grave goods.

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