Ciubotă, Viorel et al. (szerk.): Episcopia greco-catalică de Mukacevo documente 2. (Satu Mare, 2012)
R. Gindele: The tumuli of the Free Dacians of Iza
Iza / Із a відомі як в дакійській матеріальній культурі до римського завоювання Дакії, гак і пізніше в археологічній культурі вільних даків. Ми вважаємо, гцо могильник в Ізі належав місцевому населенню, вільним дакам, громаді, яка, ймовірно, розвивалася протягом століть на цих землях. THE TUMULI OF THE FREE DACIANS OF IZA The Carpathian Tumuli Culture was spread in the northern part occupied by the Dacian civilization, on a mountainous and hilly area with litde plain. It was spread in the east of Slovakia, western Ukraine, north-western Romania and on both sides of the northern and eastern Carpathians as well as in northern Moldavia. The main feature of this culture is the burial rite implying the cremation under tumuli. Chronologically, it is a culture difficult to assign to specific periods. Due to the modest inventories of graves, discoveries that might provide chronological markers are completely missing. Thus, dating is often made by relying only on ceramic discoveries or logical considerations. Several researchers think that this culture originates in the Dacian culture and mainly develops after the Dacian- Roman wars at the beginning of the 2nd century AD and evolves until the end of the 4th century AD. The most important necropolis of the Carpathian Tumuli Culture in the Upper Tisa Basin was investigated at Iza. The tumuli are set in rows, on the terrace of an old bank of the Rika river, a northern tributary of the Tisa. There are about 80 tumuli in the Iza I point, forming three groups, with 6-8 and 25-28 mounds. About 2 km far from this place, at the Iza II point, other 35 tumuli had been identified, also arranged in three groups. It is very likely that in Antiquity, on the Rika river terrace, there was a large cemetery of the Carpathian Tumuli Culture, the tumuli between the two points actually being completely destroyed by agricultural works. 53 tumuli were fully investigated of which 38 are from Iza I. The tumuli had a diameter of 6 to 10 m and were 0.15 to 0.40 m high. The typical funerary ritual consisted of cremating the deceased on the burial place and then raising the mound of earth on the place of the funeral pyre. In many cases burnt bones were collected from the surface of the pyre and deposited in urns that had been buried near the pyre or just buried by the pyre when the cremation was over. Broken vessels on the burial place show a potential funerary banquet. Another interesting aspect is provided by the presence under most of the tumuli of 2 to 4 graves, indicating collective burials or tumuli used successively by members of the same family. The inventor)' of the graves is poor: fibulae with inturned foot, buckles, knives, beads, spindle whorls. The ethnic attribution of the graves of Iza is based in the first place on the archaic, hand-made potter)’, decorated with plastic ornaments (buttons, belts with alveoli). These elements are present in the Dacian material culture both before and after the Roman conquest of Dacia when they are found in the archaeological cultures of the Free Dacians. We believe that the cemetery at Iza belonged to a local population of Free Dacians, a community that developed perhaps for centuries on these lands. Valea Tisei văzută de pe cetatea dacică de la Mala Kopania. Долина Тиси з видом з дакійського городища в Малій Копані. Tisa Valley seen from the Dacian fortress of Mala Kopanya.
