Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 33/4. (2013)
Articles
Churchyards in the Transylvanian Basin from the 11"' to the first half of the 13th centuries 139 ofparousia, on doomsday, the soul returns to the resurrecting body unifying with it and the whole intact human being becomes restored. So the soul is immortal, but it is only relatively immortal: only by way of divine mercy (according to an opinion) or by way of intelligence resembling to God (Genesis 1, 26-27) (according to another concept). In the absolute sense of the word, it is only god who is immortal (as opposed to e. g. standard Platonism). In early literature, the word coemeterium or cimiterium (gr.: koimeterion) was used exclusively for the burial places of Jews and Christians. ‘Та kaloumena koimeteria, has appeared in an imperial edict of 259, but the word occurs in Tertullian’s De anima ( [...]in coemeterio corpus corpori iuxta collocando spatium accessui communicasse LI15) and must be even older. Originally, the part of a Christian cemetery above the ground was called coemetarium, the underground section was called crypta (gr.: krypte, hidden). The Hungarian folk version of the Latin word, cinterem means not just the cemetery itself, but the chamber of the church intended for wake and the graveyard around the church. The word cinterem found its way as a loanword into the Transylvanian dialect of the Romanian language as fintirim. The German name of the cemetery is Friedhof, ‘the yard of peace’ or ‘garden of peace with the right of an asylum, it is originally Freithof (-umfriedeter Ort), i. e. a closed yard in connection with asylum right (Freiung means ‘setting free or asylum).16 4. The antecedents: Proto-Christian or half-pagan cemeteries? The subject of our research is closely connected to the Proto-Christian cemeteries, both chronologically and geographically (11th-13th centuries). According to my point of view it is very important to distinguish the characteristics of the transitional period from the 10th century pagan horse-weapon burials, which underwent major changes following the llth-century Christianisation, to the churchyard cemeteries characteristic of the medieval Christian funerals. Therefore I would like to make some important observations. The political-religious and social changes began in the 10lh century became observable in the burials from the 15 Tertulliani Liber de Anima: http://www.tertullian.org/ latin/de_anima.htm. 16 MKL 2007. first quarter of the 11th century. According to their characteristics they can be considered the cemeteries of a ‘transitional’ period, so they show archaeological evidence of the more or less fast (mental) social process of conversion to Christianity.17 In connection with these cemeteries a number of questions may arise. From our research point the most important of them is: to what extent was the population of the graves Christian or pagan? These cemeteries suggest continuity or discontinuity, between the pagan culture and Christianity? One must first settle the theoretical benchmarks of these notions, stating what we understand by continuity and discontinuity and when can they be used. In the 18th and 19th centuries, just as in the 20,h century, historians believed it was possible to trace in a linear fashion cultural continuity until the most ancient times and that through this scientific method (sic!) it was possible to trace the history of a people down to its roots (it was not very clearly argued, but they must have envisaged the biological roots). We can thus state that they believed in a linear historical evolution most clearly indicated by language, equating languages and peoples. In fact, such terms of continuity and discontinuity do not exist. Absolute cultural and demographic discontinuities cannot be traced. This would be very unusual case. The phenomena of continuity and discontinuity can be followed in parallel in one and the same period and area. Which of these two receives more attention depends entirely on the specialist making the analysis. The concept of continuity cannot explain anything. It is in fact a relative (sentimental?) position towards an issue. Sebastian Brather noted that ‘... ethnical identity can be preserved through cultural discontinuities and there are cultural continuities in the case of ethnical ruptures’. Starting from this statement, it becomes clear that cultural continuity (archaeological artefacts) alone cannot lead to conclusions about ethnical continuity.18 Some of these 11th century cemeteries were direct continuation of 10th century pagan cemeteries without any temporal interruption (e. g. Halimba, Ibrány, Püspökladány, Sárrétudvar). 17 To give a comparison, in Poland horse-weapon burials, which refer to pagan mentality, are to be observed up to the mid-12th century. On this see: Jazdzewski 1949, 179; Gassovski 1950, 176; Miczkiewicz 1969, 300. As opposed to this, weapon burials are considered extremely rare in the Carpathian Basin in the 11th century. A few weapon burials have been registered from the 11th century. The list of them is given in: Révész 1997, 169-195. 18 Brather 2004, 537-538; Csányi et al. 2008, 519-534.
