Kovács Tibor - Stanczik Ilona (szerk.): Bronze Age tell settlements of the Great Hungarian Plain I. (Inventaria Praehistorica Hungariae 1; Budapest, 1988)
Márta SZ. MÁTHÉ: Bronze Age tells in the Berettyó valley
the settlement layers (Pl. 27:5-6). The jug-shaped urn has no exact parallel in the material recovered from the soundings. Comparable vessels have been reported from Early Otomani sites, e.g. Bodrogszerdahely (Streda nad Bodrogom). Some stray finds can also be quoted, such as a jug from Kántorjánosi 63 with an excised pattern of Otomani type. This pattern occurs on the jug-shaped urn from a cremation burial uncovered at Szaniszló and assigned to the Szaniszló II phase as defined in Bader's periodisation. 64 This phase corresponds to Bader's Hatvan I and Otomani I/A, whilst P. Roman and J. Németi assigned this material to the pre-Otomani period (mostly on the basis of the excised triangle pattern). 65 This chronology can certainly be accepted as far as the jug is concerned but the carinated bowl with inturbed thickened rim covering the urn is definitely later, being characteristic of the Otomani B, and thus the grave too can be assigned to the Otomani B period. 68 The Szilhalom tell thus appears to have flourished in the Gyulavarsánd B—C periods apart from the Neolithic antecedents. The Bronze Age sequence consisted of three occupation levels with hardly any characteristic differences in the material. The earliest level appears to have been destroyed by fire judging from the burnt debris covering trench II. No traces of a rebuilding were observed here and no burnt daub fragments were found in trench I. It would appear that the area was partly levelled before rebuilding the settlement. The period labelled Late Gyulavarsánd is only represented by some sherds thus it seems uncertain whether the site was occupied in this period. ESZTÁR-FENYVESDOMB Introduction According to Bona the first mention of the site is to be found in the earliest acquisitions register of the Hungarian National Museum dating to the early 19th century. 67 The settlement was considered a major tell of the Herpály and Gyulavarsánd culture. 68 A number of Bronze Age vessels and sherds found their way into various public and private collections since the site was widely known and easily accessible, lying in the village itself, on the grounds of a former manor of the Erdődy— Szunyogh family (the building now functions as the village school). On the south side there lay a park which was destroyed after the Second World War. Later a farmstead was built here, and until recently almost the entire surface of the tell was cultivated. Now it is a protected archaeological site. The island-type tell lies at a distance of about 300 m from the Berettyó river. It is encircled by a welldiscernible fortification ditch. A modern canal drains the water from this ditch (Fig. 17). As the top of the mound was covered with late medieval bricks and sherds we opened the 4x5 m sounding on the upper part of the west slope (trench 1). Although we avoided the medieval building remains, the Bronze Age layers in trench 1 were nonetheless disturbed and partly destroyed by medieval pits. The internal chronology of the site Three badly preserved floor fragments were distinguished. The lowermost (level 3) lay at a depth of 0.7-0.8 m in the western part of the trench; but only a 1.2—1.4 m wide strip survived of it. A yellow clay rib, 0.2 m thick, ran along its eastern side that can perhaps be considered the remain of a wall. It is not entirely clear whether it was an internal partitioning wall or the eastern wall of a house because it lies right next to a medieval (?) pit that cut through the wall. Parallelly with the wall fragment three postholes (a row?) were found beside the western profile. They may have been dug for posts supporting the roof construction. Level 2 consisting of the fragmented remains of a thin and badly preserved yellow plastering was found at a depth of 0.68-0.58 m. It formed a coherent layer in the southwestern corner only, thus no building can be reconstructed from it. The uppermost level, level 1, lay at a depth of 0.25 m. It was not a real floor, since only some patches of clay and a cluster of burnt daub lay on the habitation surface. As the medieval pit destroyed the majority of Bronze Age features in trench 1, the abundant Bronze Age material cannot be separated according to layers. 69 Trench 2 was opened on the eastern part of the plateau of the mound. This trench was 4x5 m large. It was only excavated to a depth of 0.8-0.85 m in the lack of time and financial resources. The area was disturbed when the above-mentioned park was established. The uppermost layer consisted of an unusually thick humus-subh urn us layer in which no pits were outlined until a depth of 0.6—0,7 m but which, however, yielded an abundance of pottery finds including complete cups, restorable fragments of large storage vessels, jars, fire-dogs, as well as grid and wall fragments of portable fire-places —perhaps from a pit—immediately above a pit that was outlined at a depth of 0.75—0.85 m . This latter pit was dug into level 1 and its material could not be definitely separated from the pottery recovered from the humus layer. A disturbed circular fire-place and an unusually large, 0.3 m deep and 0.8 m wide,ash-pit were uncovered at a depth of 0.65 m, above the layer labelled level 1.
