Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 33/4. (2013)
Articles
182 E. Gall 13.2. ‘Poor’ and ‘rich’, elites and common people in two cemeteries: a comparative analysis of the quantity of precious metals in the churchyards of Däbäca and Cluj-Napoca-Mänä§tur (Fig. 35-36) It is a widely accepted view in Transylvanian scholarly literature that 10th-century cemeteries are ‘rich’ in grave goods and those dated to the Christian era are ‘poor ’.182 In fact, the main difference between them is the existence or the lack of weapons and harness garments .183 In the Däbäca cemetery finds available to us, not counting the coins, made of good or medium quality silver weigh 96.03 g, these are all hair rings or finger rings without any exceptions. 4.43 g bad quality silverware can be added to this. Metallographie analyses have been carried out on 13 objects with the following results: 800%o: hair ring found between the Graves 162 and 163 (1 piece) 750%o: Grave 79 (1 hair ring), Grave 108 (1 hair ring), Grave 377 (1 hair ring), Grave 448 (2 hair rings), Grave 449 (1 hair ring), Grave 453 (2 hair rings), Grave 456 (2 hair rings), Grave 464 (2 hair rings) Compared to the hair rings found in the Cluj-Napoca-Mänäftur cemetery, on which metallographic analyses were made, it turns out that the rings from Däbäca were made of worse quality silver: 875%o: finger ring in tomb 60 (1 item) 800%o: in the case of 17 items - hair rings and finger rings 750%o: in the case of 19 items - hair rings and finger rings 700%o: in the case of 2 items - hair rings The silver reserve of the Cluj-Napoca- Mänäftur items that were subject to metallographic analyses was equal to that of the coins in one case, in many cases it was 800%o and there are some items of worse quality silver. This table also shows that in most cases the items from Cluj-Napoca-Mänäffwr churchyards were made of better quality silver than the items from Däbäca. It is also important to note that the best quality Däbäca items have not been analysed, at least it seems to be the situation. 182 ‘Cimitirul a aparfinut unei populafii foarte särace (Cemetery belonged to a very poor populations)’. Iambor 2005, 187. 183 See for example: Gáli et al. 2010, 119-121. In the Cluj-Napoca-Mdnáffnr cemetery 39 finger rings and hair rings were analysed, in Däbäca- Castle Area IV only 13. Returning to the quantitative analysis of the silver in the Däbäca cemetery, if the 96.03 g good quality silver is divided by the 577184 graves, the result is 0.16 g of silver per grave, but if the analysis is focussed on the graves with furnishings, then this proportion changes: the result is 0.78 g for the 123 graves with furnishings and if only those graves are considered which contain precious metal, then we receive 1.62 g silver for the 59 graves containing silverware. We compare Cluj-Napoca-Mänd^fur with it again, the 129.05 g silver found here if divided by all the graves, we get 0.91 g silver per grave, and then again, if only the graves with furnishings are analysed, the proportion changes considerably: the result is 3.91 g for 33 graves with furnishings (Fig. 36) The difference in the quality of the silverware found at the two sites indicates that there might have been major differences in the possibilities of the two communities. This can be explained by several reasons such as: 1. Cluj-Napoca-Мяия^иг as a power centre (county centre, Benedictine monastery );184 185 2. The properties of the county centre and those of the Benedictine community: the Benedictines owned the salt mines east of the River Somesul Mare, which provided considerable income for the abbey ;186 3. E-W (trading) road might have passed the Cluj-Napoca-Mänästur centre. These factors could have established the foundations and conditions of a workshop and the existence of a long distance trade of high quality products in northern Transylvania. The archeological data draw attention to this fact: the possibilities and the economic potential of the elite community/communities living in the Cluj-Napoca-Mänästur centre prove the existence of a power centre, on the other hand, it emphasises that the elite in this centre played a much more important role in the connection with the central power compared to the more peripheral Däbäca. 184 We did not calculate with the 102 skulls and the missing graves 285-294, 304-309 and 426 of the cemetery’s plan. 185 According to the convincing arguments of Radu Lupescu, with several parallels, the area of the castle was used both by the Benedictine abbey and the institution of the comitatus. Lupescu 2005, 32. 186 Csömör 1912; Jakó 1990, 117-126.
