A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 44. (Nyíregyháza, 2002)

Régészet - Eszter Istvánovits–Valéria Kulcsár: Buckles in the Sarmatian costume and burial rite

Csat a szarmata viseletben és a temetkezési rítusban In several cases it was observed that the buckle (the only one in the burial, or the second one) was found not on the waist, but between the femurs or inside one of the femurs, at the knee. This phenomenon shows that the belt in the grave was not put on its functional place, but was either unfastened on the dead or was placed separately, in an unfastened position. Examining the origin, parallels of the burials with two buckles - two belts, we can see that this custom appears most intensively in the Sarmatian Barbaricum of the Carpathian Basin. In Roman provincial costume we find the traces of this custom neither in the grave-finds, nor at the depictions. At the same time, this custom, even if not in a great number, is known - as we pointed out above - in the graves of the Marosszentanna-Cherniakhov Culture in the territory of Transylvania, Moldova and Ukraine. The custom of two buckles - two belts can also be observed north of the Great Hungarian Plain, in the Germanic cemeteries of Przeworsk and Wielbark Culture. Here we do not have information on the position of the buckles, because these are mostly cremation graves (or no records on the position of the grave-goods). In the large part of the "classic" eastern Sarmatian territory this custom is almost completely unknown. While this element of the burial rite is missing from the "classical" steppe Sarmatian material, it is regularly found in the Crimean Sarmatian cemeteries starting from the 3

rd century. Two buckles have been found in several cases in some North Caucasian cemeteries of Sarmatian Age and in an especially large number in Dagestan (mainly cemetery Palása- Syrt) in graves of the 4

th-5

th cent. On the basis of our observations we can assume that the custom of placing two buckles (two belts, or waist-belt + other means of fastening and suspension) into one grave can be found from the Early Imperial Age in Germanic and Caucasian, later in Crimean Sarmatian graves. It would be premature to make judgements which cultural zone was the one where the Sarmatians of the Great Hungarian Plain borrowed(?) this custom from. However, it would not be an exaggeration to assume that from the 2

nd century A.D. the "custom of two buckles" spread, among the territories in question, most generally and most intensively in the Carpathian Basin. Translated by Valéria Kulcsár Eszter ISTVÁNOVITS Jósa András Múzeum H-4401 Nyíregyháza, Pf. 57. e-mail: istvanov@jam.nyirbone.hu Valéria KULCSÁR Petőfi Múzeum H-2170 Aszód, Szontágh lépcső 2. e-mail: hl3609kul@ella.hu