Byzantine Missions among the Magyars in the Later 10th Century?

Byzantine missions among the Magyars during the later 10th century? For many 10th century Christian observers, as they frequently noted, the arrival of the conquering Hungarians at the end of the 9th century meant the beginning of the Apocalypse. Therefore it is hardly surprising, that in the eyes of Christian authors the newly arrived People of Gog and Magog appeared as the par excellence pagans of their age. This view is clearly attested by all extant historical writings of the time, whether Byzantine Greek, Western European Latin or Eastern European Slavic. On the other hand, archaeological excavations conducted over the last one and a half century in the Carpathian Basin, produced a number of cross finds, datable to 10th and 11th centuries that continue to provoke a lively debate among historians and archaeologists, most of whom have been speculating how these crosses are to be interpreted. Some leading experts of early Hungarian history were in favour of and others were against the presence and spread of Christianity in the Carpathian Basin before the time of the state-enforced conversion under Saint Stephen. The present paper aims to revisit the main arguments established by the debating parties and introduce new ones in order to better understand the background against which Saint Stephen’s efforts in Christianizing his kingdom are to be contextualized. My object is to question the usefulness of applying strict theological/canonical criteria when hints of an early evangelizing activity in the burials of the given period are searched for. On the other hand, by reviewing the known ecclesiastical regulations I argue that in the first century of official Christianization of the Árpádian Age, the Church left the question of burial up to the family of the deceased; a fact which, in my judgement, helps to explain why it is nearly impossible to find a criterion or a set of criteria for determining the burial of a Christian or a partly Christianized individual before the use of churchyard cemeteries

Kép és képnélküliség a Kárpát-medencében a 6–10. században

A tanulmány röviden vizsgálja a Kárpát-medence 6–10. századi (avar kori és 10. századi) leletanyagának egyik sajátos jellegzetességét: az egykori díszítőművészetek nagyrészt képnélküli (anikonikus) voltát, s magyarázatot igyekszik keresni az emberalakok korszakonként változó gyakoriságú, mégis, összességében feltűnően ritka megjelenésére. Áttekinti az ornamentika alkalmazásának általános okait, valamint kitér a késő avar kori képi ábrázolások megszaporodása mögött meghúzódó lehetséges okokra

Megjegyzések a honfoglalás kori (öv)veretek kutatásának helyzetéről : kiválasztott problémák

The present paper is based on the results of the authors MA thesis defended in 2007 as well as of supplementary researches conducted for various projects thereafter. Belt mounts undoubtedly represent one of the most characteristic groups of Ancient Hungarian material culture recovered from tenth-century grave assemblages. Until 2007 some 247 units (from single stray finds of unknown provenance to properly excavated and documented grave and settlement finds) were registered. However, since one particular type of tenth-century horse harnesses has been likewise decorated with mounts identical or highly similar in shape and ornamentation to the belt appliqués, it is almost certain that the 247 catalogued units do not indicate 247 former belt sets. Given that previous attempts at separating mounts decorating belts and horse harnesses on purely typological grounds remained inconclusive, in the authors judgement it seems appropriate to introduce a new label and to speak about (belt) mounts when denoting non-ferrous metal appliqués originating from unknown archaeological contexts. This practice is even more justified in light of the high percentage of stray finds. Examined from a sourcecritical angle, the registered units were classified into the following categories: 1.) unpublished stray finds: 39 units; 2.) unpublished grave finds: 38 units; 3.) single stray finds: 46 units; 4.) stray finds appertaining to a cemetery: 27 units; 5.) stray finds belonging to grave assemblages/ disturbed graves: 26 units; 6.) undisturbed/fairly intact grave assemblages without sufficient information about the whole cemetery: 33 units; 7.) undisturbed/fairly intact grave assemblages of entirely excavated cemeteries: 38 units. The above brief statistics clearly indicate that some 31.2% of the catalogued units remained unpublished, while further 29.5% represents stray finds lacking a proper original archaeological context. The remaining 39.3% poses further difficulties, too. The 38 units appertaining to entirely or fairly completely excavated cemeteries originate from 21 burial grounds, among which four appear to be single graves, while, on the other hand, only six cemeteries include more than 50 graves. In three cemeteries (Hetény [Chotín, SK], Mözs, Vágtornóc [Trnovec nad Váhom, SK]) among the lattermentioned six, the (belt) mounts were placed in grave in secondary position. Therefore only the three further burial grounds, i.e. the cemeteries excavated at KarosEperjesszög (cemetery no. II), Kiskeszi [Maié Kosihy, SK), and Sárbogárd-Tringer-tanya are adequate for a horizontal stratigraphic analysis. The paper’s second part addresses problems related to the mounts’ manufacturing technology. After macroscopically examining more than 1500 tenthcentury (belt) mounts, the author concludes that, except a unique set produced by using the Pressblech technique, all currently known (belt) mounts produced in the Carpathian Basin were cast using the same technology (i.e., the so-called ‘thin casting’, being a special variant of the cire perdue technique, described by C o a t s w o r t h - P in d e r 2002, 80. and B ü h l e r 2006). This technological uniformity does not provide archaeologists with useful tools for developing a more precise chronological system. On the other hand, mounts of similar shape and design can be compared by projecting their photos of one another or using a 3D scanning technology so as to establish whether certain mounts were manufactured by applying the same master model. This procedure, however, resulted in only partial success. In a number of cases the application of the same master model could be established, but in almost all of these instances one or both units of these ‘pairs’ are stray finds and therefore the chronological consequences of the mounts’ close connection cannot be fully exploited. A further result of the personal investigations was the determination of the approximate width (2-3 cm) and thickness (0.2-0.3 cm) of the majority of tenth-century belts. This fairly narrow and thin leather belt as well as its small mounts only rarely showing well-identifiable signs of wear indicate that these belts were display objects rather than functional ‘weapon belts’ as often assumed in the archaeological literature

Late Antique Mediterranean Rotary Keys from Avaria

The present paper describes and discusses a group of iron and copper-alloy rotary keys characterised by a moveable joint connecting the shaft and the key-ring, appearing in the seventh-century material record of the Carpathian Basin whose origins can be sought in the Mediterranean. While the few published examples of the class were in previous studies mainly regarded as Roman-period artefacts secondarily re-used as amulets by the Avar-period population of the Carpathian Basin, the present study argues that these pieces in fact have a sixth-to seventh-century production date, being thereby contemporaneous with their deposition in seventh-century mortuary assemblages. Taking this observation as a springboard for further interpretation, an overview of the possible meanings and symbolic associations attached to keys in Roman, late antique, and early medieval times is offered. The main argument presented here is that besides serving amuletic purposes, some of the Avar-period keys could in all probability have conveyed more explicit messages about their owners, such as that of their feminity and of their economic role and authority in their respective households. The Appendix supplementing the present paper seeks to provide a theoretical reconstruction of a wooden casket buried with the woman interred in Grave 119 of the Kölked-Feketekapu B cemetery, one of the burials yielding a Mediterranean hinged rotary key