Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 31/1. (2011)
Articles
Bronze Objects from the Excavation of the Tärgu Mures Franciscan Friary 315 eastern side of the building we identified a Charles Robert coin in the destruction layer. With the help of the coin we could establish the functioning interval of the warehouse between the years 1317 and latest around 1350. The precise chronology of the building provided solid evidence in the dating of the bronze material as well. From the LI warehouse we have two important bronze finds: the remains of a stilus and a bronze bowl (cat. no. 3 and 37; PI. 1/3; 4/37a-d). The second complex named L3 was identified northeast to the Franciscan friary. It was excavated in 2009-2010 and it turned out to be the remnant of a cellar of the larger 14th century friary building. This building was demolished during the mid 15th century and its construction can be dated to the mid 14th century. The size of L3 was around 96 square meters; its southern wall was 8 meter long and its western wall was 12 meter long. L3 had a specific construction technique. On the bottom of the 2.5 meter deep cellar a 0.6 meter wide and 0.5 meter high stone wall was built using plaster composed of clay mixed with sand. On the stone foundation the wooden wall was placed. Inside the foundation four large wood columns were placed at every three meter. These columns supported probably the upper structure. Based on the archaeological material, the L3 building was demolished, its material was reused at another construction and its cellar was filled up with the garbage of the friary. Based on the coin finds the last period when the L3 functioned could have been the end of the 14th century we have found Louis the Great coins on the cellar’s floor. The place of the former cellar was filled up in approximately fifty years; the latest coins were from the mid 15th century. The filling of the cellar contained an enormous quantity of pottery since the place served as a garbage pit after it was abandoned. We have found a large quantity of stove tiles and animal bones along with the garbage of a bone tool workshop that produced mainly rosaries, glass fragments, but iron fragments and bronze material were also revealed. The bronze material found in L3 contains a number of special objects and tools such as a second 14th century stilus, snuffers, book cover ornament, thimble, needle, knife handle, clothing accessories, etc. The large variety of the bronze objects reveals a lot of information about the rich material culture of an important medieval friary. In case of other archaeological sites such a large variety is not characteristic. The most important bronze find from L3 is a so-called pointed oval (vezica) shaped 14th century seal. This unique find belonged to the guardian of the Győr (western Flungary) Franciscan friary. We can connect some of the finds to the activity of the friary or to another group of objects found here. For instance the large number of thimbles (eight) might be connected to the presence of a bone workshop. The thimbles were probably used during the drilling process of the bones. The presence of another stilus is also connected to the friary where the friars copied codices and documents. The stilus was used for writing on wax boards. The book cover ornaments are again connected to the friary’s life. Usually larger friaries had a library a compactor and a scriptorium, meaning a place where the friars copied the manuscripts. The newly copied books received a cover and necessary bronze ornaments to protect them. The other objects were connected to everyday life and probably one can find them in the case of other medieval sites as well. The knife handles are very widespread but the candle extinguisher fragment from the early 15th century is again a rare piece. The third important archaeological complex with a considerable number of finds was the cellar of the 15th century friary building. The late gothic construction was demolished in the early 17th century but the filling contained several late medieval objects. The late gothic cellar had around 105 square meters, a little larger than the 14th century cellar. The filling of the cellar consisted mainly of demolition material from the friary buildings; therefore the archaeological
