A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 48. (Nyíregyháza, 2006)

Régészet - János Makkay: The Late Bronze Age hoard of Nadap

János Makkay flat bronze objects, esp. fragments of the sieving vessel (No. 311 - Plate XXX) and the greaves.

1 Since the house of Sándor Szűcs, a miner working in the stone quarry at Fehérvárcsurgó (on the other, western side of the Velence Hills), was standing on the path leading down from the hill, he recognized the objects as being ancient and collected the spearheads. To satisfy his curiosity, the boys led him to the place of discovery, and with their help he was able to collect around 350 pieces. He brought them home and kept them in a wooden through outside his house, under the eaves. They went back to the place on subsequent occasions, to search for further pieces. As a result of this work an area of dark earth came to light, this was about 25 square meters in extent and it produced a number of further finds. Amongst these was a strap crossing, No. 305 (Plate XXIX), which, according to Szűcs, was one of his favourite objects. He also noticed the presence of many fragments of pottery vessels which, as a result of intensive digging, were broken into small fragments. Some of these sherds might have been part of a large container which had been once used to contain the hoard. Attempts to reconstruct shapes using these sherds were unsuccessful. These pottery fragments, down to the smallest pieces were all collected and were once kept in the collections of the Museum. They numbered several thousand. During the following week of the Easter Holidays the miner, Mr. Szűcs visited the County Library of Székesfehérvár. With the help of the staff he found one volume of the Budapest Régiségei (the Annual of the Budapest City Museum), and noted a socketed axe head, which was very similar to one from the hoard. Since he was working shifts in the mine and usually came home from the night shift around six thirty in the morning, one day he did not change to the regular bus service for Nadap at the Székesfehérvár station but broke off his way, and came to the Museum of Székesfehérvár. He rung the bell. The whole building was empty, except for my good friend Ferenc Horváth, an excellent painter who stayed in the central museum building arranging an exhibition.

2 Ferenc used to work regularly at the dawn. Szűcs informed him about his plan to show the pieces to an archaeologist. Horváth was very careful, admitted the man into the building, asked him to wait an archaeologist, in this case me, and did not allow him to go home. During these 3~4 hours, Horváth was given a bronze bracelet which he wore for a few years, but later returned it back to the collection (No. 243 - Plate XXV). I arrived, as usual, at 9,30 from Budapest. The miner, Mr. Szűcs was sitting in my room and, greeting me he said: I am here with some Late Bronze Age objects. Opening his attache-case, made of leather and wood, I gazed at 20-22 of the most complete objects of the hoard, amongst them several axes and the beautiful knife or dagger (No. 68 - Plate XI).

3 Around 10 we were at Nadap, on the open area before his house, we put a kitchen desk of Mr. Szűcs on the grass, and the 'herald' of the village, a loudspeaker invited owners of further pieces (exclusively young boys) to the place. A number of them came with objects, and I paid 10 Fts for each piece, a modest price that time (for example, three glasses of beer in the local pub). I asked them for further informations, and immediately recorded names of other boys probably having Later that year with the help of Dr. Pál Raczky we drained the small depression but we did not succeed in finding further pieces. A small catalogue of his paintings, exhibited in the Székesfehérvár Museum, was published in 1968: Exposition of Ferenc Horváth, with an appendix of the famous Hungarian writer, the late Gyula Hernádi, entitled as On the art of Ferenc Horváth, especially about his series The Sun Kings, These pictures were also exhibited in Hilversum in the same year, during the days when the armed forces of the Communist Warsaw Pact occupied Prague. Dutch authorities suspended the opening of the exhibition for this reason, but Dutch artists did arrange it saying that Ferenc Horváth was not the man who attacked and occupied Czechoslovakia. The picture of his attache-case and its content was published in the Weekly Elet és Tudomány (Life and Science). See MAKKAY-PETRES 1970. (Fig. 2) 136