Early Avar Graves from Felgyo, Kettoshalmi dulo. — Kora avar kori sírok Felgyo-Kettoshalmi duloben [Felgyo-Kettoshalmi-Dulo’de Erken Avar Dönemi mezarları]
in: Avarum solitudines. Archaeological studies presented to Gábor Lorinczy on his sixtieth birthday — Avarok pusztái. Tanulmányok Lorinczy Gábor 60. születésnapjára., Anders A., Balogh Cs., Türk A., Editor, Martin Opitz Kiadó, Budapest, pp.209-244, 2014
- Publication Type: Book Chapter / Chapter Research Book
- Publication Date: 2014
- Publisher: Martin Opitz Kiadó
- City: Budapest
- Page Numbers: pp.209-244
- Editors: Anders A., Balogh Cs., Türk A., Editor
- Istanbul University Affiliated: No
Abstract
Six Avar graves were uncovered during the archaeological investigation of a roughly 113,000 m2 large area on the outskirts of Felgyo in 2006. The large distances between the graves suggest that these were solitary burials that had been part of a burial zone. Grave 1 was a niche grave. A post mortem mutilation was observed in Grave 4: the left leg of the deceased was severed and placed obliquely between the right elbow and the left ilium. The Mezoszilas type pendants from Grave 6 had a loop of sheet bronze soldered on their reverse, probably for suspension Grave 1 contained several rare bone artefacts: a purse fastener or, more likely, a bone stiffener for the purse in view of the wear marks, a bone needle, bone tweezers and a bow-shaped fi re-kindler. The graves can be dated to the second quarter of the 7th century. The concentration of early Avar period sites in the Felgyo area (Csanytelek, Gátér, Felgyo-Kettoshalmi dulo, Felgyo-Ürmös-tanya, Tiszaalpár-Várdomb) can probably be associated with the crossing-place across the Tisza at Böldi rév.
A distinctive group – characterised by knobbed and spiky ceramic wares, hand-thrown, asymmetric clay fl asks, braid combs, mirrors, caskets with bone plaques, closed uncollared quivers adorned with narrow bone plaques and the earliest bone plaques for bow quivers – can be outlined in the early Avar material of the Danube-Tisza interfl uve. These artefact types have no local antecedents in the Carpathian Basin. The burial rites associated with this group (the north-northwest to south-southeast and north to south orientation of the deceased, the lack of sacrifi cial animals, the longish, pit-like cavities recessed into the long side of the shaft graves, the deposition of the remnants of funerary sacrifi ces into separate pits and the creation of a burial zone with graves scattered over a larger area) refl ect the arrival of a new population group to the Carpathian Basin.