Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 32/2. (2012)
Articles
160 Zs. Nyárádi being cultivated while the other is being used as a pasture. During the surveys we have stumbled upon traces of human settlement which had been uncovered by land cultivation procedures. These dated back to the prehistoric era. The areas northern part was already populated during Early Neolithic. Alongside fragments of pots belonging to the Starcevo-Cris-Körös culture we also collected a considerable amount of blades and the shards resulted from their production, as well as flint blades and the leg of an idol. The next larger population settles in the valley during the Bronze Age, with richly decorated fragments of pots, bowls, and fragments of a filter belonging to the Wietenberg culture. Beside all this we have also stumbled upon a fragment of a polished and perforated stone axe. Following the Bronze Age the valley remained uninhabited for a long time. Stray artefacts from the Roman Age did show up, but these got here either indirectly or later on. They may also be associated with the nearby guard towers, but by no means can they be connected to a settlement. The following settlement horizon of the area may be tied to the migration of the Avar-Slav populations during the 7th and 8th centuries. From this period we have found fragments of pots decorated with twisted and linear string, which in some cases had their interior rims also decorated. Their settlement had also expanded into the valley’s central area. Most of the items found in the village date back, of course to the medieval period. By this time the settlement had covered the entire central area of the valley. According to the pottery found here, its establishment must have occurred sometime during the 12th or 13th centuries. Pottery from the age of the Árpád dynasty can be found in significant quantity in the area between the Mórum and the Nagyszeg creeks. These are black and dark brown fragments of pots with decorations in a wave or twisted string pattern, made on a slow potter’s wheel. We have also uncovered an arrowhead from the same period. 14th-16th century pottery turned up in even more significant quantities, and these had been made on fast potter’s wheels. They turned up as stray items in mostly brick red or light brown coloured sand. Numerous metallic artefacts such as locks, knife blades, sickles, and forged iron nails, offer us insight into day to day life in the village during the Middle Ages. Stove eyes and tiles as well as other objects from the late middle ages, collected during the surveys may indicate the presence of a mansion house which could be connected to the Berze family, who had been engaged in lawsuit following the village’s liquidation. Although we have not observed this during the surveys, it is traditionally considered that Szentimre, “which is now called Puszta, was the favoured merry making place for the castle’s captain, as there was also a fishing pond here next to which stone walls are uncovered quite fervently today, during ploughing” (Szeles 1898, 388). During the autumn of 2005 we also managed to find the location of the village’s church (PI. 2/1). Contrary to what was traditionally accepted, Szentimres church did not sit on top of the pile of debris on the left bank of Varga Creek (next to the cross marking the site), but it could be found on the valley’s right side, beneath the Csalóka, in a relatively sloped area, on cultivated land. Finding it happened thanks to the deep ploughing, which was also responsible for a considerable part of the base of the walls being destroyed. We did not manage to find the wall surrounding the church but the large number of human bones uncovered may indicate the presence of a cemetery around it.
