KOVÁCS TIBOR: TUMULUS CULTURE CEMETERIES OF TISZAFÜRED / Régészeti Füzetek II/17. (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Budapest, 1975)
III.Some considerations on the cemeteries
A. The supposed earliest burials preserving mostly the traditional shape and motive elements of the native inhabitant, are the following: graves 20, 56, 80, 141, 143, 161, 172, 175, 359, and furthermore the disturbed graves 17, 67, 125, 128, 296, 322 and the urngrave 58. B. Burials partly contemporary with, and partly later than the above: graves 1,3,13, 22, 55, 65—66, 76, 79, 102, 126, 132, 141, 150-151, 154, 157, 160, 172, 179, 181, 188, 217, 234, 241, 250-253, 274, 282, 288, 294, 300, 303, 308, 325, 354. C. The younger graves of the cemetery: 2, 8, 19, 21, 50, 75, 100, 135, 156, 159, 167, 174, 196, 213, 220, 229, 233, 267, 291, 306, 326-327, 329-330, 335, 341-342. The A and D burials (Fertőihalom) and the graves I—II (Kenderföldek) of the other two cemeteries belong to the early period of the Tumulus Culture, from the time shortly after the conquest. 3. OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE CHANGES AND THE CHARACTER OF APPAREL AND WEAPONS The investigation of Bronze Age apparel belongs to the white areas of our studies. This can be explained by objective facts rather than by disinterest. The number of artistic figurines is low, and these cannot always be evaluated from this point of view. Our direct source derives of skeleton burials. But even of these only the undisturbed graves of authentic excavations can be considered valid. The domestic studies dealing with this subject rely on data of burials excavated during the past few decades only. 8 1 The people of the Late Bronze Age in Hungary cremated their dead, except the early group of the Tumulus Culture. Thus in reconstructing the apparel of the Late Bronze Age where evaluation is possible each skeleton burial provides an important source from this period. The division of the graves of Tiszafüred to be used this is the following: of the 126 skeleton graves of Majoroshalom only 21 are undisturbed, 4 are pythos burials, of which four are undisturbed; Kenderföldek has one skeleton grave, Fertőihalom three, but only one is undisturbed. A. Objects decorating clothes. There are no remains in the cemetery which would indicate any style for clothes. Two graves provided finds which could be determined as clothes decorations: plates with bent edges, hammered dot lines and etched concentric circles. Similar objects belong to the characteristic remains of the Koszider bronze industry, 8 2 thus it is not at all suprising that they came to light from the earliest burials of Tiszafüred. The decorative elements of the two pieces found in a secondary position in the ground of grave 258 are identical, but their technique of production is partly different. 8 3 A plate which disintegrated during the excavation, similar to this, was lying on the ribs of the skeleton of grave 66. Tins data in itself allows to suppose, that these plates, if they really functioned as clothes decorations, must have been sewn on the dresses at the lower part of the chest. 8 4 But there is no such doubt concerning the use of the globular cap-shaped bronze plates containing two holes. The only question is where and in what formations were the buttons of different sizes sewn on the dresses. The contracted burials provide very little information concerning this, since the decorations were not in their original position at the time of excavation. For this reason especially grave 175 is very important because, although it was a disturbed grave, the upper part of the skeleton was intact and we found 17 buttons in situ which formed a straight line from the skull to the pelvic area. We can thus conclude that globular cap-shaped buttons formed vertical lines on the dress. We found buttons like this in 16 graves of our cemetery. 8 5 « B. Jewels. Some observations indicate that pins were mostly used to hold clothes together rather than decorate it during the Bronze Age. 8 6 It is sometimes very difficult to determine when a pin plays a functional role and when solely a decorative one. This distinction becomes important at the reconstruction of clothes. 8 7 From the pin found under the skull of the undisturbed grave 102 we can surmise that they used pin for hairdo decoration also. 8 8 Forty four pins came to light from 36 graves of our cemetery. In the skeleton graves where the pins were found in situ, they were always on the shoulders or close by, which meant that they were used to hold the dress together. 89 The conclusions, while evaluating the cemetery of Tápé, were that men pinned their clothes together with one pin and women with two. The same was found at Tiszafüred also. 9 0 Lacking the physical antropological investigation sexes could only be distinguished by other finds in the graves of Tiszafüred. With this in mind we can say that in graves containing arms there was always only one pin: graves 73, 99 (fig. 8.), 135 (fig. 11.), 174 (fig. 14.), 252. The richly jeweled, most likely female corpses wore two pins on their shoulders: graves 102 (fig. 9.), 330, 256, 359). 9 1 These pin pairs are always identical in shape, only the decoration varies sometimes. The pin pairs found in cremation graves also represent the same type (graves 268, 354), only in the urn of grave 341 were two different pins (PI. 31—341/3—4). This latter pin-pair is important because one of them, a so called sickle-shaped pin is a variation of the locally worn traditional type (PI. 31—341/3) whereas the seal-headed pin is the most characteristic type of the Tumulus Culture. 46
