Vadas Ferenc (szerk.): A Szekszárdi Béri Balogh Ádám Múzeum Évkönyve 13. (Szekszárd, 1986)

Michel Séfériades: The Great Hungarian Plain and East Macedonia: a Szakálhát import or imitation at Dikili Tasch

Bright red brown-on-cream sherds are decorated with very thin and regular lines carefully painted (fig. 4-6). The patterns are groups of parallel lines, hatched or checked triangles, small curvilinear bands with hatchings, chevrons and isolated spirals. On the Akropotamos matte-painted ware, designs are also very fine (figs. 7 and 8). Patterns include groups of straight, rounded and sinuous parallel lines recalling railway lines with their shuntings and also ladders and crooks, which is a typical decoration of the group. Certainly, it is the dark-on-light patterned ware which characterizes our Struma group on the east fringe of the Vinőa complex. Nevertheless, these two groups of painted pottery recall in fabric and design patterned wares from Central Macedonia and Thessaly, more exactly the „grey on grey" ware from Servia, Tsangli or Otzaki (Hauptmann and Milojcic 1969, fig. 6). Patterns can also be compared with similar ones from the Tsangli and Arapi periods (ibid, figs. 2,5 and 6). Other parallels can be found in the Wace and Thompson's Lianokladi III I ß ware. Here, as in the Akropotamos ware, groups of parallel lines and crossed ladders are associated with spirals or crooks (Wace and Thompson 1912,182 figs, c, g, 184 fig. 131, 185 fig. 132). The Struma group thus defined, I can now tackle the real subject-matter of this paper, namely the discovery of a peculiar vase which in my opinion and also according to J. Makkay's and other Hungarian archaelogists' seems to be a Szakáihát import or imitation (figs. 9 and 10). It is a large fragment of a pedestalled cup (H. 0,

12, D. o, 15); the sandy clay, the surface treatment, the buff-yellowish colour, the sharp incised pattern are unique at Dikili Tash but on the contrary extremely common in the Szakáihát group of the Great Hungarian Plain (Kalicz and Makkay 1977). The pattern, incised after the manner of Szakáihát, consists of a capital M. Both legs end in large symmetrical spirals (Ibid, pi. 152:4, 153:5 and 6, 189:2,5,7 and 8; Raczky 1982, fig. 3:1). Above this M, we find another small independent spiral and under it a schematic representation of a man with his arms raised (Kalicz and Makkay 1977, pi. 186:24). A conventional sign probably meaning „woman" is the spiral pattern; so it is possible that, like a few Szakáihát jars, also the Dikili Tash pedestalled cup recalls and fixes in a symbolic way some essential myth in relation with the oldest neolithic themes of creation and fertility. Other relations with the Szakáihát group the „Linienbandkeramik" in general must be underlined, as for example horned handles, lugs with two projections (figs. 11), close incisions (figs. 12) and above all the decorative plastic circles so well attested during the Szakáihát phase (fig. 13)(Ibid, pi. 187:97, 188:9). The fact remains that during the neolithic period, strong connexions exist between Northern Greece and the Middle Danube region. These relations which persist during the Bodrogkeresztúr, Hunyadihalom (Boleráz, Baden, Kostolac) Vucedol-Zók periods (Séfériadès 1985) can be summarized in the following chronological table (fig. 14). 58