Szabó Miklós, Petres F. Éva: Decorated weapons on the La Tene Iron Age in the Carpathian Basin. (Inventaria Praehistorica Hungariae 5; Budapest, 1992)

Introduction

And even though the Eastern Celtic Art exhibition definitely gave a fresh impetus to the preparation of the documentation which was at that time thought to be final, the problems of restoration and conservation soon became apparent. Since, however, there was few possibilities for solving these at that time and in many cases restoration procedures were not always crowned with success,

45 our Catalogue should rather be regarded as a report on the present situation which will undoubtedly be modified as progress is made in the conservation techniques of iron artefacts. And since there are no prospects in Hungary for a swift and radical change in this respect it seemed unjustified to further delay the closing of this corpus. An attempt at completeness is definitely illusory in archaeology since new finds are made practically each day. In other words, any work of this kind can never be completed and we too had to omit the inclusion of some very recent finds.

46 One basic objective of this study was the publication of the find associations of each piece that had been recovered from an archaeological context since this is absolutely necessary for establishing a precise chronological framework.

47 That the title to this study has the Carpathian Basin instead of simply Hungary was commanded by a respect for the onetime historical context. The reproduction of illustrations from already published works not only eases the reading of chapters devoted to evaluation, but is also a necessary must for this work to be of synthetical value. We have obviously aimed at completeness in this respect too,

48 and we have also tried to control and complement the documentation of finds that are not housed in Hungarian collections either through personal autopsy or with the help of colleagues. Cooperation with P.-M. Duval and V. Kruta in the 1970s was crucial for clarifying the theoretical and methodological problems of the analysis. P.-M. Duval personally helped us in controlling the drawings of the Hungarian material, and both of them spared no effort in complementing the documentation. They generously enlisted the help of A. Bulard (Paris) and, later, of A. Rapin (Compiègne). We also wish to thank the following scholars who generously offered us research facilities and helped us further by sending important documents, and who were always ready for stimulating discussions on Celtic art, and the problems of history and art history set in the wider perspective of Celtic culture: J.V.S. Megaw (Leicester-Adelaide), I. Stead (London), B. Raftery (Dublin), A. Duval (St. Germain-en-Laye), J.-P. Guillaumet (Autun Glux-en-Glenne), Chr.Peyre (Paris), P. Roualet and J.-J. Charpy (Epernay), W. Dehn and O.-H. Frey (Marburg), W. Krämer (Berlin), U. Schaaff (Mainz), G. Kaenel (Lausanne), F. Müller (Bern), D. Vitali (Bologna), M. Guätin (Breäice), B. Jovanovic (Belgrade), J. Bïeii (Prague) and V. Zirra (Bucharest). We must also express our gratitude to the directors of all those museums who on the occasion of the Celtic exhibition staged in 1974 in Székesfehérvár facilitated in every way the examination of relevant finds housed in their collections: Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna; Podunajské Museum, Komarno; National Museum, Ljubljana; Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz and Musée Cantonal d'Archéologie, Neuchâtel. We are also indebted to all our Hungarian colleagues who kindly permitted us to include yet unpublished material: Tibor Kovács and Tibor Kemenczei (Hungarian National Museum, Budapest), Ida B. Kutzián and Gyöngyi Kovács (Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest), Szilvia Palágyi (Laczkó Dezső Museum, Veszprém), Magdolna Hellebrandt (Herman Ottó Museum, Miskolc), László Horváth (Thury György Museum, Nagykanizsa), Péter Németh (Jósa András Museum, Nyiregyháza). Also of great help were our colleagues working in the Dobó István Museum of Eger, the Balatoni Museum of Keszthely, the Liszt Ferenc Museum of Sopron and the S avaria Museum of Szombathely. We are deeply grateful for the moral and generous financial support from the foundation created for the investigation and publication of our cultural and historical heritage without which this study could not have been published. Special thanks are due to Tibor Kovács, the vice-director of the Hungarian National Museum. The illustrations to this study were drawn by Mária Ecsedy, Katalin Nagy, Zsuzsa Brannzeiss and Ágoston Dékány. The source of the illustrations of items housed in non-Hungarian collections is in all cases mentioned in the Catalogue.