Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 33/4. (2013)
Articles
Churchyards in the Transylvanian Basin from the 11th to the first half of the 13th centuries 141 cemetery.28Additionally, important differences could have also existed among the cemeteries of rural character, but it is impossible to determine them because of the poorness of the inventories. The quantity of their inventory (in the first place jewellery) was defined largely by the fact whether they were rural, hidden village cemeteries or cemeteries attached to the larger centers, where the traffic of merchandise, market places, made the acquisition of different goods much easier. In the end, it is important to highlight that the 11th century social differentiation within a cemetery is almost impossible to research, since in many cases grave goods were found only in child graves. It can be stated that social structures cannot be investigated in these cemeteries, and we do not see the possibility of drawing a more exact picture of populations of different origins in the Transylvanian Basin in the 11th century. Besides these types of cemeteries, churchyards are already known from the beginning of the 11th century.29 In the Transylvanian Basin, the existence of cemeteries of this type can only be supposed but it is sure that the powerful individuals of the 11th century should be looked for in such burials. 5. The Churchyards in Europe Medieval funeral is closely connected to the religious beliefs of the people of that time, therefore its every feature is in connection with the theological doctrines or the code of discipline of the church. In the prime of the Middle Ages (12th— 13th centuries) the church was responsible for the funeral of the deceased on its own right. The cemetery, compared to that of the early centuries of Christianity, underwent major changes, the bishop had the right to establish one either out of town or inside it, it was situated near or around the church, but the building of the church could have served the same purpose.30 From the 4th century on, there is a break, a discontinuity of rites in the European Mediterranean culture due to the spread of Christianity: the custom of cremation burials was abandoned switching to inhumations. Certainly, a part of the population of the Roman era also buried their dead, but the graves with W-E orientation without any grave goods have been connected 28 Gáli 2013, Vol. I: 842, 299. kép, 922. 29 For example Szombathely: Kiss 2005, 151-162. 30 Szuromi 2005, 9-10. with Christianity with more or less justification. The Christians when adopted inhumation burial rite, just followed the example of Jesus Christ, for the dead body was full of the hope of immortality (1 Corinthians 15:43). However, it is important to note that since the beginning of the evolution of the human race people of different origins with various cultural traditions have buried their dead, therefore one cannot talk about afcomplete discontinuity in the context of the Roman and the pagan world. Having adopted Christianity, these people integrated their earlier cultural values into the Christian picture of the (other) world, creating the religious and cultural synchretism of their values characteristic of their environment. An excellent archaeological example of the complex phenomenon of continuity and discontinuity or religious synchretism, which can be observed parallel in many cases, can be seen a few hundred kilometers from Dacia, in Dalmacia. The cremation urns of the lst-3rd centuries found near Split/Spalato, mainly in Salona, were made in the shape of houses. This representation was retained and it was the only difference that we could register skeletons in the sarcophags from the 4th-6th centuries, but the shape of a house as the dwelling place of the dead in the other world was retained (Fig. 3). So in this case a disruption of the picture of the after life and customs can be observed (cremation burialAinhumation), but the house type,31 which had been retained from the pagan times and was successfully integrated into the framework of Christian values, can also be seen (maybe as group-identity symbol). Moreover, older religious values and a picture of the other world had also been retained along with this model, in this case in the culture of Dalmatian peoples. ‘The living place is not an object, not a ‘dwelling machine’, but the universe itself, which man built for himself/herself when imitating cosmogony, the masterpiece of gods. The warming up or building of each living place is considered a new beginning, a new life’ - wrote Mircea Eliade. Certainly, the house-shaped urns and the sarcophags, from a later period, can be interpreted from this point of view, i. e. the ‘living’ place of the deceased. So in the case of the late Roman cemeteries excavated in the different regions of Europe, in the territory of the former Empire, no discontinuity 31 It should be noted that house-shaped urns appear in several cultures such as ancient Central Asia (Manichaeism), China and Etruria. Eliade 1987, 51, 168-169.
