Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)

Tartalom

WHAT THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDINGS TELL US

45

Franks

needles, spindle-buttons, combs, tweezers). Women's graves were typically furnished with jewellery (beads, rings, earrings, pendants). Rather surprisingly, a very rare article, a mould carved of rhyolite tufa, which was used for making jewellry, such as crescent-shaped pendants and grooved ribbons, was also placed next to a woman's body. Men were often buried with their studded belts, which were worn by free Avar men. Clay pots were placed at the feet of both men and women. The dead were provided with food for the journey to the other world. Judging by the bones found in the graves, this was mostly poultry, sometimes beef, mutton or pork. The community using the cemetery may have been lived nearby.

From the last decades of the 8th century onwards the Avar Khaganate was more and more threatened by the eastward expansion of the Carolingian State. Although Charlemagne's campaign of 791 was not yet successful, by that time the Avar Empire was already weakened, which was partly due to the civil war and the conflicts among the leaders. After the wars of 795 and 796Transdanubia was under Frankish rule, and by the beginning of the 9th century the Avar Empire had ceased to exist east of the Danube as well.

Belt ornament (PMMI-TIM 80.276.1)

The cemetery with 514 graves excavated in the pebble quarry was used for a long time between the early 7th and the mid-8th centuries and it indicates a settled lifestyle. There were few weapons in the graves, for instance, only one sword. (It is worth mentioning, however, that about two-thirds of the graves were robbed during the Avar era, which frequently occurred at the time. The dead were usually buried with their tools and personal belongings (knives, awls, knotters, fire-irons, needle-cases,