Gyöngyössy Márton (szerk.): Perspectives on the Past. Major Excavations in County Pest (Szentendre, 2008)

An Árpádian Age village at Érd

(6100-4500 ВС) (4500-2700 ВС) (2700/2500-800 ВС)

The overwhelming majority of the roughly 1900 archaeological features uncovered during the excavations preceding the construction of the M6 Motorway were part of an Árpádian Age village, which on the testimony of the written sources could be identified with a medieval village called Székely, lying in part on the southern outskirts of present-day Érd and in part in Százhalombatta, in an area known as Simonpusztai-dűlő.

The village’s sunken houses and work pits with ovens lay on plots separated from each other by an elaborate ditch system, with the plots aligned in north-east to south-west running loose rows in a chequerboard-like pattern. Most houses measured 3 m by 3 m and had an oven in the north-eastern corner. Some of these ovens were built from stone, although Roman tegulas (roof tiles) were occasionally also used. Countless refuse pits, storage pits and open-air ovens were found outside the houses. Many ovens were repeatedly renewed. In addition to cooking, the open-air ovens were used for smoking and drying. No pottery kilns were found. Evidence for metalworking came to light farther

from the houses, around the oven and work pit complex in the settlement’s south-eastern part.

Rectangular bedding trenches for a fence were observed around some medieval houses. The many ditches, which in the lack of finds could only be assigned to this period based on their stratigraphic position, probably served for draining excess water or marking the boundaries between the plots. The settlement was occupied from the 10th to the 14th century. The rather simple finds were dominated by 12th—13th century white and reddishbrown household pottery and various iron tools and implements. The earliest coin find, a silver denarius of King András I from the mid-11th century, was found in an oven, while the latest one is a Slavonian denarius from the 13th—14th century.

The Árpádian Age settlement extended to the northern bank of the Benta Stream. However, very few settlement features from this area could be assigned to this period.

• Katalin Ottományi and Edit Mester