A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 41. - 1999 (Nyíregyháza, 1999)

Régészet - Mikhailo Potushniak: A multilevel settlement on Mala Hora at Mukachevo/Munkács–Kishegy

A multilevel settlement on Mala Hora at Mukachevo/Munkács-Kishegy The clay includes natural contents of talc. The surface of the majority of the thin walled pots was smoothed and slipped with a thin layer mixed also with chamot. The thoroughly polished surfaces were ornamented by painting. The core of the walls is grayish-ash colored. Most of the pottery was poorly burned, the fragments are fragile. The thickness of the walls is 0.5-0.8 cm, with a thickening at the bottom. There are many fragments the utmost thickness of which is 0.2-0.3 cm. Judging from the fragments the group of the fine ware is represented by mainly semiglobular vessels. Among them there are pieces with a slightly profiled edge of the rim. On the most widening part of the body we sometimes see applied semi-spherical handles with a vertical hole. Anthropomorphic handles also occur in the shape of a human leg or hand (PI. II.

35,8,9). The latter have direct analogies in the Zseliz/ Zeliezovce type of the Linear Pottery Culture ceramic from South-West Slovakia (PAVÚK 1960.43-57. tab. XVI.3.). The second most frequent shape is represented by bowls with oviform profiled walls. There are tulip shaped bowls in the form of a "semi-open" or an "entirely open tulip", the rim shows quadrangular form as seeing from above like pieces that underlines the rhomboidal shape of the neck of the bowl (PI. II. 1, 111.2,26). There are fragments of an amphora with a narrowing neck and semi-spherical handles applied on the transition between the neck and body (PI. II.

2, III.8). Among different forms fragments of vessels on high, bell shaped pedestals deserve a special attention. Their upper parts probably were bowls or tulip shaped cups (PI. II.

7). A number of fragments probably belonged to high, drinking glass shaped vessels or cups with conical walls narrowing toward the bottom (PI. III.

3,5,7). We also have a miniature vessel in the collection (PI. XIII. 1) that appears relatively frequently on the settlements of this age. The majority of the fine ware was decorated by painted ornaments (PI. III. 1-25) and only on one fragment we observed a linear ornament consisting of short incised meandric (PL III.

26). Painted ornament was made on a thoroughly smoothed, brown, cherry red, red, rose and cream colored surface. The ornament was made exclusively with black paint. Unfortunately, the pattern remained only as a negative imprint. It came out that the color of the negative imprint depended on the original surface. That is to say, the original color of the surface had been retained better under the layer of the black paint flaked off. That leads to the illusion of the polychrome painting. So, the concept that this pottery was ornamented by red, brown and rose paint, as it was stated by the Zatlukal brothers and K. Berniakovich (ZATLUKAL-ZATLUKAL 1937.41, BERNIAKOVICH 1966.166-167) proved to be a mistake. A detailed microscope study of painted pottery form Mala Hora and other settlements of the same age has shown that almost the whole of pottery was ornamented by black paint. The motif of the ornamentation from Mala Hora is rather monotonous. The basis of the ornament is composed by a wide and a narrow band, that make mainly patterns reminding the so called "endless spiral". Wide bands were used at patterns reminding "Y" and "X", vertical and rectilinear. The space between them - depending on the form of the vessel was filled with ranges of parallel, thin stripes. As a whole this motif is typical for the PPC. Taking into consideration the higher than 700° Celsius temperature of firing (KOREK 1977.41-42), the painted ornament must had been applied on the surface after the firing, because in the process of firing it must had been burnt out. However, we can not exclude that the paint was "hardened" under a lower temperature. S. Siska published interesting data considering the chemical ingredients of the paint and the techniques of painting in connection with the material from Kopcany/Kopcsány (East Slovakia). The basis of the black paint was soot mixed with casein. Casein was applied to the surface of the vessel or added into the slip to be better adhered to the surface. The vessels were painted by brush of good quality (SISKA 1989.144). The high percentage of protein in the paint can be explained by the use of casein and not by the use of animal blood, as it was stated by J. Korek (KOREK 1977.49). There are small clay objects used in the everyday life and cults, found in the Middle Neolithic level of the settlement of Mala Hora. Among them we can mention a pyramidal loom weight with a hole made in its upper, narrow part (PL 1.6). Its connection with this layer is supported by an analogous - in its size and shape - weight in a Middle Neolithic feature 1/82 of settlement Zastavne/Zápszony-Kovadomb I. Among the finds collected by J. Böhm a hollow clay object in the form of a bird head, shoe or a human leg is of special attention. It could be a part of an anthropomorphic or zoomorphic vessel (PL II.

9). A thin walled, possibly anthropomorphic vessel has three holes situated as angles of a triangle. Inside the triangle we see a reliefreminding a human face with 11