Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 30/1. (2010)
Articles
Burials in the Tárgu Мищ Franciscan Friary. A Fourteenth Century Burial with Diadem 193 we assume that the friary was in one hand very popular and powerful enough to obtain burial rights versus the parish church, while on the other hand we believe that only a wealthier class or in exchange of a donation was somebody buried in the friary’s graveyard. Probably further excavations will reveal more data not only about the percentage of laic and church people burials but also about the possible family connections within the graveyard. The grave M52 The grave’s (PL 1/3-4) particularity is given by the rare accessories we have identified during the excavation of the skeleton of an 8-10 years old female with the remains of a diadem around her skull (Fig. 5). The diadem consisted of 8 discs and 38 bone made pearls. The pearls were probably placed on a thread and surrounded the discs. Both the discs and the pearls were put on a textile that surrounded the head of the lady. The discs were confectioned from bronze and very probably they were silver plated (Pi. 2). The discs were found on the skull and because of the oxidation their green coloured traces were well preserved (PI. 3). Unfortunately we do not exactly know the original arrangement of the bone pearls as the textile support vanished during the centuries, but the bronze discs got stocked on the skull therefore we know their exact place. We have eight marks on the skull meaning that there were eight discs. During the excavation we could recover only six discs that were better preserved and one fragment from the seventh disc. The eighth disc was completely destroyed and we could not establish what kind of figure was printed on it. In total we have three kinds of figures, one has a solar symbol, than a heraldic symbol with the Angevin lily and the third figure represents a running deer. The solar symbol is preserved on one disc, on two discs we have the lily symbol and on four including the fragment we have the figure of the deer. The diameter of the discs is around 3 cm. They were produced by pressing. The analysis of the diadem requires a comparison to other similar finds from the 14th century Hungarian kingdom. We need this larger horizon because in Transylvania it is for now a unique find from the 14th century and all the other analogies are from distant regions, most of them from the central part of the kingdom in the area inhabited by the Cumans in the Middle Ages.5 Due to their burial habit they placed in much higher proportion different artefacts in the Fig. 5. The in situ discs and bone pearls on the skull of M52. 5 Hatházy 2004.
