Istvánovits Eszter (szerk.): A nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum Évkönyve 55. (Nyíregyháza, 2013)
A 2010. október 11-14. között Nyíregyházán és Szatmárnémetiben megtartott Vándorló és letelepült barbárok a kárpáti régióban és a szomszédos területeken (I-V. század) Új leletek, új értelmezések című nemzetközi régészeti konferencia anyagai - Renata Madyda-Leugutko et al.: Új adatok a Felső-San-vidék római kori kulturális helyzetéhez
Magic sword pendants Marcin Biborski - Piotr Kaczanowski Since the publication of Joachim Werner’s “Beiträge zur Archälogie des Attila-Reiches”, the so-called “Magische Schwertanhänger” — magic sword pendants, have become a group of artefacts frequently mentioned in the literature devoted to the Roman and Migration Periods. The most often discussed question is to what degree the magic pendants can be considered as evidence for longdistance contacts between the Asian steppe cultures and the European Barbaricum, stretching from Western Siberia to Western Europe, and what role the armament, equipment and customs of Roman soldiers played in this process (Werner 1956. 26-56, Hagberg 1967a., Hagberg 1967b., Méri 2000., Kovács 2001., Carnap- Bornheim 2003., Sarov 2003., Istvánovits- Kulcsár 2001.). Much less attention has been given to the function of the magic pendants. These are small, round, discoid, semi-spherical or nearly spherical artefacts, usually 50-70 mm in diameter, with a centrally placed aperture of a diameter ranging from a few to several millimetres. They are made of glass or semi-precious stones - jade, chalcedony, jet, rock crystal, or, sometimes, amber. It should be noted that at some of them one surface is flat (Fig. 1). Among these diverse forms, one can particularly distinguish a group of glass specimens decorated with a motif known from Kauri shells (Fig. 2). As it was mentioned, magic sword pendants occur in the area stretching from Western Siberia to Western and Northern Europe, in a very broad time span encompassing about six centuries beginning from the 2nd century AD. However, our interest is limited only to the European finds dating from the Roman Period and the early phase of the Migration Period. Most pieces come from the Carpathian Basin occupied by the Sarmatians and from the moor-finds of Northern Europe. However, the majority of the discoveries provided no direct clues as to the function of the artefacts in question. It was only one of the Sarmatian burials from Hungary, at Tiszalök, that Fig. 1 Thorsberg (Archäologische Landesmuseum Schleswig) (Photo M. Biborski) 1. kép Thorsberg (Archäologische Landesmuseum Schleswig) (M. Biborski felvétele) NyJAMÉ LV. 2013. 423-430. 423
