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

CATALOGUE - Introduction

CATALOGUE INTRODUCTION The catalogue is arranged into two parts. 1. Hungarian finds are listed in the alphabetical order of their findspots. We had the opportunity to study this material personally and also to supervise the analytical drawing of their ornamentation. The illustrations were drawn by Mária Ecsedy (M. E.), Katalin Nagy (K. N.), Zsuzsa Branzeiss (Zs. B.) and Ágoston Dékány (A. D.), although we occasionally used the drawing made by the excavator of the find. 2. The other finds from the Carpathian Basin are listed in alphabetical order too, but grouped according to countries. The drawings of these finds were adopted from their published illustrations, with an indication of the source, with the exception of pieces which were exhibited at the Eastern Celtic Art exhibition of 1974 and could thus be drawn from the original. We have followed the descriptive system introduced by De Navarro (1972, Part II). However, his descriptions could not always be fully adopted owing to reasons outlined in the Introduction (pp. 16-17). Since our primary objective was the publication of engraved ornamentations, the occassional omissions in morphological data are perhaps pardonable. Our definition of chape types is based on the types of the Kosd cemetery (Petres-Szabo [1986] Fig. 15.), but we also borrowed from De Navarro's typological system. (Fig. II.) We used P.-M. Duval's schema for describing scabbard ornaments (Duval [1975] Fig. 1), with necessary modifications in order to make it suitable for describing intricate patterns. (Fig. I) We have tried to list all of the associated grave finds in the case of burial assemblages. Completeness was illusory also in this case for the excavators did not always publish all of the grave goods. Fig. I. The organisation of scabbard design