Garam Éva szerk.: Between East and West - History of the peoples living in hungarian lands (Guide to the Archaeological Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum; Budapest, 2005)

HALL 8 AND CORRIDOR - The Avar period (567/568-804 A.D.) (Éva Garam)

///. Cast bronze griffin mount from Dunacsún. 8th century against the Avars, causing the unexpected, final collapse of the Avar khaganate. The Avars never recovered from this blow and they ceased to be a political factor in the region. The everyday life of the Avar commoners during the 8th century is presented through the finds recovered from their burials. The extensive cemetery excavated at Tiszafüred-Majoros, containing some 1300 graves, provides an insight into the lifeways, the costume, the customs and the beliefs of this period. The cemetery was opened in the 650s, probably by a small community which had left the slightly overpopulated southern Transdanubian area, settling by a former branch of the Tisza in the Middle Tisza region. The settlement and its cemetery probably remained in use until the arrival of the Hungarian tribes. The graves of the first generation were arranged according to the ancestral burial rite reflecting the tribal hierarchy; the grave goods from the warrior graves (sheet metal and pressed belt mounts, various