Majorossy Judit: A Ferenczy Múzeum régészeti gyűjteményei - A Ferenczy Múzeum kiadványai, D. sorozat: Múzeumi füzetek - Kiállításvezetők 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Patay Róbert: Késő bronzkor
to protect their properties against the intruders of the neighbouring communities. Up to the present, only a few of their burials have been unearthed. They exclusively performed (un-urned or urned) cremation burials and a lot of vessels (up to 10-20 pieces) were put into the graves. Each of their cemeteries consisting of only a few graves and forming a closed unit could have been used by an extended family. In the exhibition the material of a grave uncovered at Tápióság is on display and, among other objects, a richly decorated cup with incisions and filled with the so-called incrustation can be seen. This cup, by all means, reached the region of the Tápió from Transdanubia. Migrations and complex changes at the end of the Early Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age created the Vatya culture along the River Danube at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age. Their people occupied large territories in Eastern Transdanubia, between the Danube and the Tisza rivers, and in the northern parts of the Tápióság. Beside their linear settlements, they also established fortified earthworks (fe/l-sites) surrounded by a defensive enclosure (by ditches) and occupied the fortifications of the Hatvan culture along the Tápió. These fortifications were most often situated near important crossing-places, they were the farming-trading centres of each smaller region, and they usually were the places of metallurgy, too. The cemeteries of the culture - which were fairly large in comparison to the former era, sometimes even contained more than 100 graves - were established close to their settlements, near the world of the living. They cremated the dead, and they put the burnt ashes into a large burial urn, often in anatomical order (feet and legs at the bottom, hip-bone, ribs, arms, hands in the middle, and the skull above). These urns were always covered with one or two bowls and a small beaker was put next to them. They often placed bronze jewels, dress fittings, pins into the graves, and less often even weapons. In Pest County several large cemeteries and settlements of the Vatya culture has been excavated in the last few decades (Biatorbágy, Cegléd, Érd, Kakucs, Páty, Szigetszentmiklós). In the exhibition several burial urns, jars, bowls as well as the then used costume decorations made of bronze (jewels, dress fittings: “spectacles”-, half moon- and heart-shaped pendants, spangles) are shown. These artifacts were also put into the urns as grave goods. The end of the Middle Bronze Age is indicated by the so-called “Koszider-phase". The reasons for hiding the bronze treasures found at Dunaújváros and at some other sites have been long debated and until today not concluded by the scholars, but it is surely known that the world of the Middle Bronze Age cultures was still flourishing at that time. At the end of the period, however, the economic-social system of the chiefdoms collapsed, the weather conditions worsened, and the depletion of natural resources led to the depopulation of the tells and the fortified settlements. Life on the tell-sites came to an end, the inhabitants emigrated or escaped. This opened up new opportunities for the Tumulus culture of Western origin, whose people had started a slow but continuous infiltration to the Carpathian Basin at the beginning of the Koszider-phase. Their graves following mixed burial rites (urn burials and un-urned cremations, contracted and extended burials) and supplied with rich grave goods (vessels, bronze pins, bronze diadems) indicate the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. Bronz tű, Halomsíros kultúra / Bronze pin, Tumulus culture 28 Tál, vatyai kultúra / Bowl, Vatya culture
