Majorossy Judit: A Ferenczy Múzeum régészeti gyűjteményei - A Ferenczy Múzeum kiadványai, D. sorozat: Múzeumi füzetek - Kiállításvezetők 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Farkas Zoltán: Avarok kora
borderland of the Hun Empire led by Attila. The origin of the Huns can be traced back to the Central Asian Xiongnu tribes mentioned in the Chinese sources. The Chinese built their famous Great Wall against this population. In 370 these Nomads crossed the River Volga, defeated and expelled the Alans and conquered the Eastern European steppe together with those peoples joining them. Their centre had situated until 420 east of the Volga. From 424 onwards they occupied the territory of the Gepids in the Great Plain. They spent altogether 30-40 years in the Carpathian Basin. Their portrayal in the contemporary sources is rather controversial. Everything that is known about the Huns’ life and customs was written down by the historians of those people who were conquered by them (the Romans and the Goths). Ammianus Marcellinus, who gathered his knowledge about the Huns only from other reports, described them with the century-old traditional words of former writers, such as the “Scythian Nomads” (who do not know cooked food, eat meat tendered under their saddles, cut their babies’ faces not to let their beard grow, grew up with their horses and can hardly walk on their own crooked legs). According to the Gothic chronicler, Jordanes, the Huns were „stunted, foul and puny”, they do not even resemble human beings. The East-Roman Priscus, however, painted a much more realistic picture about them. He described Attila’s Huns after having visited them in their own country. The archaeological material also supports this latter picture about their richness and welldeveloped social system. Handing Pannonia over to the Huns did not mean the complete destruction of the Roman culture in the former province. Only the upper social stratum of the main leaders, officials, and soldiers left Pannonia. The poorer population stayed. Roman survival can be traced until the last third of the 5th century in some isolated forts along the limes (Tokod), or in certain towns surrounded by walls or in inner forts (Sopron, Szombathely, Keszthely-Fenékpuszta). In the end of the 4th century a new type of archaeological material appeared in the Roman graves and in the uppermost layers of the Roman forts and watch towers. These were burnished vessels, bowls, and jars with collared rim. One of the main centres of their production was in the Danube-bent, in the watchtower at Leányfalu. Ceramics with similar forms and decorations were found in the fort of Visegrád-Gizellamajor, in the upper layer of the military camp at Szentendre, and in the watchtower at Budakalász. At the same time, Barbarian types of hand-formed vessels, mainly simple small mugs and pots were also excavated on the same sites. Also typical artifacts of the turn of the 4th-5th centuries were the mossy green glass vessels: the small half-egg shaped glasses and bottles were uncovered both in the latest burial sites of the Late Roman cemeteries at Szentendre and in the graves of the Hun Period in Páty and Budakalász. Along with these vessels, new types of jewels - hairpins, earrings (Szentendre, Budakalász), and bolt fibulas - appeared. The Huns might have clipped their dresses with the bolt fibulas on one or on both shoulders. The number and place of these fibulas can also be the signs of ethnicity. The fibula that was found in the cemetery at Szentendre could have been worn on both shoulders by a woman. This, characteristic object of the Germanic, Ostrogothic costumes survived until the 6th century. The Huns either clipped together their caftan-like cloaks on their chest with one fibula, or they did not wear any fibula on their high-necked dresses. The two fibulas worn on the shoulders at the beginning of the 5th century were already replaced by dress pins (such as the silver dress pins from Páty). The majority of the new finds were prepared in Roman workshops, adjusting the familiar shapes and decorations to the taste of the Barbarian customers. Consequently, the Kétoldalas csontfésű / Bilateral bone comb 52
