Download IX. THE BARBARICUM IN THE ROMAN PERIOD

IX. THE BARBARICUM
IN THE ROMAN PERIOD
Historical overview | 265
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Andrea Vaday
The territory east of the Danube was the homeland of various Barbarian peoples in the Roman period. The ethnic
composition of these peoples and the balance of power between them shifted periodically on the left bank of the Danube, as well as in the adjacent Baèka in Yugoslavia and the
Banat in Romania.
In the mid-1st century B.C., the Celts lost their hold
over the Great Hungarian Plain and were ousted by the
Dacians, led by their king Boirebistas. The remnants of the
Celtic tribes survived only along the northern mountainous
fringes of the Great Hungarian Plain. After the Romans occupied Transdanubia, they fortified the Danubian frontier
of the empire to prevent the Barbarian peoples’ expansion.
Roman policy was to ensure and secure the loyalty of the
neighbouring Barbarian tribes to Rome, whether by political, economic or military means, this being the reason that
Rome extended her authority over the Germanic Quadi
who had founded their kingdom north of the province, but
whose tribal territory and power also extended to the left
side of the Danube Bend.
Arriving to the Carpathian Basin from the Lower Danube region, the first groups of the nomadic Sarmatian
Jazygians of Iranian stock settled in the northern part of the
Danube–Tisza Interfluve in the early 1st century A.D. After
consolidating their settlement, they forged an alliance with
the neighbouring Quadi, an alliance that remained unbroken for over four centuries. The Jazygians expanded southwards between the two rivers; leaving the hilly region on
the northern fringes of the Great Hungarian Plain, they
crossed the Tisza at the close of the 1st century, at the time
of Trajan’s Dacian wars and – with the exception of the Upper Tisza region – they occupied the area beyond the Tisza
that had formerly been ruled by the Dacians. After defeating the Dacians, Rome founded the province of Dacia in the
area that is now part of present-day Romania. The Sarmatians found themselves in an entirely new political environment, squeezed in between the Roman provinces of Pannonia in the west, Dacia in the east and Moesia in the south,
with an area occupied by a mixed Celtic, Dacian and Germanic population to their north. Led by their king, the
main tribe of the Jazygians soon joined the first Jazygian
groups in the Great Hungarian Plain. The population
growth, the increasing strength and expansion of the Barbarian population living in the Great Hungarian Plain did
not escape the Romans’ attention. The Roman merchants
who carried their wares across the Danube to distant territories, also acted as spies for the provincial army. The strategic importance of the roads traversing the Great Hungarian Plain and the crossing places on the Tisza increased.
The war on the empire’s Danubian frontier broke out at
the same time as the wars against Parthia in the east, in the
late 2nd century. The Barbarians invaded the Danubian Ro-
man provinces in two major waves from the Rhine region to
the Black Sea. Marcus Aurelius had to face the fact that no
matter how ingeniously Rome tried to force these peoples
to become vassals of Rome, the alliance between the Barbarian tribes proved stronger. One possible solution to the
crisis east of the Danube was the creation of new Roman
provinces in the Germanic and Sarmatian territories that
were to be called Marcomannia and Sarmatia. The Roman
troops advanced deep into the Barbarian heartland, occupying the territory up to present-day Trencsény (Trenèín,
Fig. 1. Coffin burial of a warrior from Mezõszemere
266 The Barbaricum in the Roman period
Slovakia). After Marcus Aurelius’ death, however, Roman
foreign policy again turned defensive, reflected in the linear
protection of the frontier and the renewed efforts to forge
an alliance with the Barbarians. The idea of creating new
provinces was discarded. The war also affected the Barbarian peoples. Groups of Sarmatian Roxolani from the east
settled in the Great Hungarian Plain, while the Vandals, a
Germanic tribe, occupied a part of the Upper Tisza region.
Parallel to the appearance of the Vandals, the Sarmatians
expanded towards the northeast. The Vandal-Sarmatian
border was established at this time, as was the Sarmatians’
settlement territory that remained unchanged until the last
third of the 4th century. The so-called Devil’s Dyke (variously called Csörsz or Roman Dyke), a massive earthwork
constructed in the late Roman period on the Romans’ initiative, marked the boundary of the Sarmatian settlement
territory. The products of distant provinces found in Sarmatia reveal that Roman trade with the Sarmatian lands intensified. A number of northbound roads branched off the
Aquincum–Porolissum road, along which Roman wares
reached faraway areas in Poland through eastern Slovakia
(Fig. 1).
The profound changes that shook the Roman Empire in
the 260s and 270s also affected the Carpathian Basin. The
repeated Gothic attacks from the east weakened the Roman
frontier defence to such an extent that Aurelian was forced
to withdraw the Roman troops from Dacia, to completely
evacuate the province and to resettle the Roman population
south of the Danube. The road to Transylvania and the
west lay open to the Goths. Driven from their homeland
east of the Carpathians by the Gothic advance, new
Sarmatian groups arrived to the Great Hungarian Plain;
their majority eventually settled in the Baèka and the Banat
in the south. That the Sarmatian territory became increas-
Fig. 2. Sarmatian belt with late Roman
military mounts. Mezõszemere–
Kismari-fenék, grave 30
ingly important to the Romans is shown by the repeated
peace treaties concluded with this people in the first third of
the 4th century and the creation of a defence zone in the
Barbaricum to protect the Danubian provinces of the empire against the Gothic onslaught. The middle line of the
Roman defensive earthworks running along the boundary
of the Sarmatian settlement territory was probably constructed at this time, in the wake of Marcus Aurelius’ campaigns (Fig. 3). That this immense earthwork system was
patrolled by Barbarian troops supervised by Rome is reflected in the high number of armed male burials in the
cemeteries lying along the entire length of the earthwork
and the presence of late Roman belts with military mounts
and Roman brooches, signalling their wearers’ ‘Roman’
military rank (Fig. 2).
Fig. 3. Reconstruction of a
Roman rampart at Fancsika
The peoples of the Barbaricum during the Roman period | 267
Arriving from the east in the early months of 332, the
Goths and the Taifali first attacked the Vandals living in
the Körös region and then turned against the Sarmatians,
who repelled the attack with Roman help. The late 370s
heralded the dawn of a new era. There were regular
clashes between the tribes arriving from the east and the
Eastern Roman troops in the Balkans. Emperor Valens
personally led the campaign against the Barbarian peoples. In the decisive battle at Hadrianopolis (Edirne, Turkey), the Gothic-Alan-Hun army dealt a crushing defeat
to the Roman army. Some groups of this Barbarian army
moved westwards and eventually settled in Pannonia with
Rome’s permission. The wars became constant, leading to
the collapse of the Sarmatian defence line. In 401, upon
hearing of the Huns’ advance, the Vandals fled westwards
from their homeland in northern Hungary; they were
joined by the Quadi living north of Transdanubia and
groups of Alani from the Tisza region. On December 31,
406, they crossed the Rhine, the first of the many successive waves of the Barbarian peoples’ migrations to the
west. As a result of their flight, the population temporarily
decreased in some parts of the Great Hungarian Plain.
The migrations through the Carpathian Basin meant immense hardships for the Sarmatian population. Decimated
by the constant wars, the Sarmatians withdrew to the
Danube–Tisza Interfluve and the areas south of the Danube after the Gepidic takeover following Attila’s death.
THE PEOPLES OF THE BARBARICUM
DURING THE ROMAN PERIOD
Andrea Vaday
THE SARMATIANS
The archaeological heritage of the Sarmatians was first
identified in the late 19th and early 20th century. The
first systematic overview of the Sarmatian finds from the
Barbaricum was written by Mihály Párducz in the early
1930s. This study was followed by a string of others, publishing the find assemblages in the museums of Csongrád,
Hajdú-Bihar and Bács-Kiskun counties. Mihály Párducz
remained the leading expert in this field of research; in
addition to publishing a number of excavated cemetery
and settlement finds, he also wrote a second summary of
the Sarmatian corpus of finds and determined the find
types typical of individual periods (the early Sarmatian period, the finds of the 2nd and 3rd centuries and of the
Hun period). Sarmatian finds were published but sporadically after World War 2 until the 1970s. Fieldwork was
mostly restricted to rescue excavations; the single planned
excavation was conducted at Madaras, where an entire
Sarmatian cemetery was unearthed. The history of the
Sarmatians in the Carpathian Basin was at the time based
on András Alföldi’s works. János Harmatta contributed
important studies on Sarmatian linguistics and the history
of the eastern Sarmatians, an indication of the rigid separation of historical, linguistic and archaeological research
in this field.
The study of the peoples living on the fringes of the
Sarmatian settlement territory, such as the Dacians, the
Quadi and Vandals, was even more neglected in Hungary.
Our knowledge of the archaeological heritage of the
peoples of the Barbaricum is extremely patchy in Hungary. The long-time activity of the archaeologists working
in the Szeged Museum can be strongly felt in the southern
part of the Great Hungarian Plain, similarly to the intensive work of a handful of archaeologists in a few smaller
areas. Very little work has been done in the Baèka in Yugoslavia, in the Banat, and in the northwestern and western areas of Romania. The number of published find assemblages is very low. Only a few new sites have been reported from the Banat since Bódog Milleker’s overview,
published in the late 19th century. New sites from the
Baèka have only become known in the past few decades.
The research and the interpretation of the archaeological
assemblages from the Roman period in these two countries was coloured by a political bias, especially after
World War 2: in Romania, some Sarmatian assemblages
were attributed to the Dacians, while in Yugoslavia, the
archaeological heritage of this Iranian people was associated with the Slavs of the Roman period.
The field surveys in the 1960s along the Devil’s Dyke
marked a major milestone in the research of this period.
The exact chronological position of this earthwork rampart
was clarified by trial excavations. Two other important discoveries were made during these field surveys: one was the
Roman fort at Felsõgöd, the other a smaller Roman military
building at Hatvan–Gombospuszta, both indicating Roman
activity in the Barbaricum.
Fig. 4 shows the number of new excavations and publicaFig. 4. Number of excavations and publications
268 The Barbaricum in the Roman period
Fig. 5. Site distribution of the Microregion Research
Project of the Great Hungarian Plain
tions. It is clear at first sight that the findings of only some 25
per cent of the excavations were published between 1951 and
1960, while only 19 per cent of the excavations conducted in
the next decade, even though the number of archaeological
investigations had almost doubled. The discrepancy between
the number of excavations and the number of publications
continued to rise in the ensuing decades. This state of affairs
will hardly be remedied in the near future since the number of
finds recovered from large-scale rescue excavations eclipses
by far the assemblages known to date.
The systematic cataloguing and evaluation of the known
find assemblages in the past decades has increased the number of known sites by many hundreds, even in counties that
had not been particularly well investigated. The field surveys
conducted in the Great Hungarian Plain revealed that the
Sarmatian settlement network was much more dense than the
modern one. The number of sites is very high, even if they are
proportionately distributed over four and a half centuries. In
Békés county, for example, 109 of the 535 sites representing
various periods identified during the topographic survey of
the 35 km2 large area bordered by Gyomaendrõd, Szarvas and
Örménykút were Sarmatian ones (Fig. 5).
The conspicuous difference between the number of
sites identified during field surveys and the number of excavated sites reflects the paucity of investigated sites in a
given area. As a result, a general analysis and evaluation of
the find material is rather difficult owing to the uneven
state of research, the lack of excavations and the badly
documented or undocumented assemblages in local museums still awaiting publication. At the same time, the findings of the excavations preceding major construction projects and the so-called microregion projects, involving
both field surveys and excavations in smaller areas, have
vastly enriched our knowledge owing to the wealth of information provided by the find material and the large excavated surfaces.
Major construction projects are usually preceded by
one of three excavation types: linear, block-like or a combination of the two. The first type characterizes road con-
struction projects and the laying of gas and oil pipes. In
these cases, the length of the excavated area is significantly larger than its width. One disadvantage of these investigations is that practically nothing can be learnt about
the actual extent of the site, about the area falling outside
the excavated territory. Another one is that the sections to
be excavated are determined on the basis of the field survey preceding the excavation and the areas that appear to
be ‘empty’ are not investigated, even if they fall within the
planned line of the motorway or pipeline. One case in
point is the Kompolt–Kistér site, where the surface features observed during the preliminary field surveys indicated the presence of two nearby sites. The rescue excavation conducted in the area between the two ‘sites’ revealed
that the features identified during the field surveys were
in fact part of the same site. The third disadvantage of linear excavations is the relatively small width of the excavated area. The planned course of a new road is usually
60 m wide in the case of motorways and 20–40 m in the
case of smaller roads, meaning that in spite of the relatively large size of the excavated surfaces, a number of archaeological features cannot be interpreted.
The second type of major rescue excavations is the
block-like type. The excavations conducted on the site of
future shopping centres, petrol stations, border crossing
stations and the extraction pits of the motorway constructions fall into this category (e.g. Csengersima and Polgár).
In contrast to linear excavations, the length and width of
the excavated area is more proportionate, providing considerably more information on the stratigraphy of a site.
The third type is the most advantageous, combining the
advantages of the above two without their disadvantages.
This type of rescue excavation, however, is far too rare: it is
an option only in cases when there is a chance to excavate
the planned exit areas and service station of motorways.
Fig. 6. Archaeomagnetic survey of a Sarmatian workshop at Gyoma
The peoples of the Barbaricum during the Roman period | 269
The research of the Barbaricum in Hungary entered a
new phase during the past three decades not only in terms
of the quantitative and qualitative increase of finds, but also
as regards the use of various analytical methods in the investigation of a given site. In addition to traditional survey
methods, aerial photography, geophysical surveys and
subsurface probes are now also employed in site prospecting (Fig. 6). The reconstruction of the one-time environment of a settlement site has similarly become a more or
less routine exercise.
these names indicate a Celtic origin for these towns, suggesting that the Jazygians occupied these settlements and
that the Celts probably continued their existence under
Jazygian rule.
The different lifeways of the sedentary Celts and the
semi-nomadic Sarmatians no doubt eased some of the tensions between these two peoples. The surviving Celtic population contributed much to the distinctive material culture
of the Sarmatians of the Carpathian Basin, whose original
eastern culture gradually faded.
THE CELTS
THE DACIANS
The study of the peoples who lived in Pannonia before
the Roman conquest and of the spiritual and material culture of the native population has always been a part of Roman studies; in contrast, the study of the Celtic groups
living in the areas east of the Danube during the Roman
period has been largely neglected. This can in part be ascribed to the lack of excavations, and in part to the fact
that while the survival of the local Celtic population can
be traced rather accurately in Transdanubia, in the Barbaricum the Celtic population blended with the native
population. Very little is known about this ‘mixed’ material culture and the few find assemblages can be dated
within broad chronological limits only. As a result, the
distinctive Celtic find types of the Roman period in the
Barbaricum cannot be determined for the time being.
We know from Greek and Roman sources that Celtic
tribes lived in the Danube–Tisza Interfluve and on the
northern fringes of the Great Hungarian Plain. Unfortunately, these sources are silent on the relationship between
the immigrant Sarmatians and the local Celts. In his
Geographike written in the 2nd century, Ptolemy lists the
names of the Sarmatians’ towns in this region. Some of
The study of the Dacians has also been neglected in the
Great Hungarian Plain. While working on his monograph
about the Sarmatians, Mihály Párducz also collected the
Dacian assemblages and the finds he believed could be associated with the Dacians. The first study offering a historical
interpretation of the Dacian find material in the Great
Hungarian Plain was written by Zsolt Visy in the late 1960s.
One of greatest difficulties was that the material in question
was mostly made up of stray finds without any context that
did not even allow a precise dating.
In the early decades of the 1st century, the Jazygians conquered the northern areas of the Danube–Tisza Interfluve
that had until then been occupied by the Dacians and they
gradually moved into the Baèka as well. The Great Hungarian Plain, however, remained under Dacian rule until
Trajan’s wars. Curiously enough, there were no finds that
supported the information contained in the written sources.
Authentic Dacian finds were lacking from the one hundred
years following the mid-1st century. The occasional Dacian
vessel recovered from the burials of the earliest Jazygian
groups in the northern part of the Danube–Tisza Interfluve
indicated the presence of a mixed population. The dating
Fig. 7. Dacian and Sarmatian
finds from Gyoma. End of the
2nd century
270 The Barbaricum in the Roman period
and the archaeological interpretation of the finds from
Jánosszállás and Hódmezõvásárhely–Kakasszék was practically impossible. No ‘pure’ Dacian finds were known, only
mixed Sarmatian-Dacian assemblages.
A Dacian settlement was unearthed at Szegvár. The finds
from this site finally confirmed the historical picture projected by the written sources of the Great Hungarian Plain
before the Sarmatian occupation. Finds dating from the last
quarter of the 2nd century have been uncovered on the Sarmatian settlements at Újhartyán and Gyoma (Fig. 7). The
Dacian finds from the second occupation phase of the Sarmatian settlement suggest that Dacian groups fled to the Sarmatian settlement territory in the face of the Vandals’ invasion of northeastern Hungary during the Marcomannic wars.
Dacian finds again appear sporadically in the final decades of the 4th century (for example at Kardoskút), indicating that the population groups fleeing the Huns also included Dacians.
THE QUADI
Gábor Márkus
Little research has been done on the Quadi in the Barbaricum, in part owing to geographical reasons since only the
fringes of the areas occupied by this Germanic group fall
within Hungary’s border. It is therefore hardly surprising
that in his study of the Quadic finds in Hungary written in
1963, István Bóna relied heavily on the finds from Transdanubia. New advances in this field were brought by the
field surveys and excavations in the Ipoly valley, in the
course of which several Quadic and Sarmatian sites were
identified. One interesting observation made during these
surveys was that the settlements of these two peoples were
not spatially separate in the territory east of the Danube
Bend, but often lay quite close to each other, sometimes
even sharing the same site. The finds collected during the
field surveys were unsuitable for clarifying their chronological position. The excavations at Ipolytölgyes revealed
intensive trade contacts between the Quadi and the Romans in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The large-scale excavations in the 1990s marked a major turning point in the
research of this period. The settlements yielding Germanic or mixed Germanic-Sarmatian assemblages investigated along the planned course of Road 2/A must be mentioned in this respect. The sites around Kompolt, lying by
the Heves county section of the M3 motorway, yielded information of a different nature. Even though closed assemblages of Germanic finds were not found on these
sites, various Germanic artefacts were recovered from several features (Fig. 8). The Sarmatian settlement can be
dated to the period after the Marcomannic wars, when
commerce with the neighbouring Germanic communities
flourished along the borders.
Although we now have a fairly good idea of the archaeological heritage of the Quadi from the 2nd–3rd centuries,
this is not the case for the late period. It is unclear whether
this can be ascribed to a genuine lack of Quadic/Suebic
finds from the 4th century or the inability to recognize the
finds for what they are. The Roman historian Ammianus
Marcellinus mentions that as a result of the long co-existence of the neighbouring Quadi and Sarmatians, their customs and lifeways became very similar and it is therefore
possible that the assemblages from the late period lack the
distinctive and well datable Quadic and Sarmatian traits.
The problem is the same in the areas where the settlement
territory of the Quadi, the Sarmatians and the Vandals
overlapped.
Fig. 8. Germanic finds from Sarmatian settlement features at
Kompolt–Kistér
The archaeology of the Sarmatian territories | 271
THE VANDALS
Gábor Márkus
The archaeological heritage of the Vandals, tribes of eastern Germanic stock who controlled extensive areas in Poland, Slovakia and the Ukraine, is known as the Przeworsk
culture, after the eponymous cemetery unearthed in Poland
in the early 20th century. As a result of the German, Polish
and Slovakian studies in this field, we now have a fairly good
idea of the internal development of the culture. In eastern
Europe, the northern fringes of the Carpathian Basin
marked the southern border of the culture’s distribution,
roughly from the Tarna river, through the Tisza bend to
the Szamos and Kraszna valleys. This southern border zone
has hardly been investigated and only a few sites of the culture are known. The scanty Hungarian material is nonetheless important owing the fact that only on the northern
fringes of the Carpathian Basin was there a direct interaction between the Vandal tribes and the Roman Empire.
The first finds from Hungary came to light in the mid-19th
century. All of these assemblages were recovered from the
cremation burials of warriors (Lasztóc/Lastovce and Gibárt). At the time they were dated to the Iron Age. Comparable find assemblages were found in the 1930s at Apa, Árdánháza/Ardanovo, Szolyva/Svaljava and Kékcse. The advances made in this field of research eventually led to the
correct dating and the ethnic attribution of these graves.
The currently known graves of Vandal warriors number
about two dozen. Most of these lie in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg
county (Tiszakanyár, Nyíregyháza–Árpád Street, Nagyvarsány, Kisvárda–TV tower and Vásárosnamény–Hajnal Street),
with two known from Heves county (Terpes and Sirok) and
one from Romania (Bujánháza/Boineºti). These burials can
be dated to between the final decades of the 2nd century and
the early 4th century. These graves were without exception
cremation burials (either inurned or scattered cremation burials) and they all contained many weapons, mostly spears – often as many as two or three pieces –, shields and the occasional
sword. In addition to weapons, the finds from these burials invariably included another important article of the equipment
used by Vandal warriors, namely spurs that could be attached
to the boots. Larger cemeteries of the Vandal population are
known only from the neighbouring countries. Royal burials
have not yet been found in Hungary, although István Bóna
has suggested that the golden pin found at Vállaj had perhaps
originated from a royal burial. Similarly to the other Germanic peoples, a shift from cremation to inhumation can be
observed in the 4th century among the Vandals, probably under cultural influences from the Mediterranean.
The study of the Vandals’ settlements began in the 1950s
and has since then been continuous. Unfortunately, only
smaller sections of the known settlements were excavated in
earlier campaigns and even though larger areas have recently
also been investigated at Csengersima and Beregsurány, their
finds have not been published, meaning that these settlements cannot yet be set in a wider context. The distribution
of the known settlements reflects the extent to which an area
has been investigated, rather than the actual, one-time settlement network. Most of these settlement sites are known from
the Miskolc area ((Miskolc–Sötétkapu, Miskolc–Szabadság
square, Miskolc–Szirma, Sajókeresztúr). Beside various pits,
the settlements features included the typical houses of Barbarian settlements, such as the sunken house with two to four
posts and without an oven uncovered at Ózd–Stadion. The
ethnic attribution of these settlements is problematic, especially in the Sarmatian border zone, owing to the mixed nature of the pottery finds. Vandal pottery reflects a strong Roman influence from the turn of the 2nd–3rd centuries; this
influence was largely technological and the Sarmatians’ mediation can be assumed. The Vandal potters adopted the footturned potter’s wheel and the earlier hand-thrown pottery
was soon supplanted by wheel-turned wares that had earlier
been wholly absent. The pottery finds from the settlements
are dominated by ‘Sarmatian’ type wheel-thrown vessels and
the ratio of the typical, traditional Przeworsk pottery is very
low.
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE
SARMATIAN TERRITORIES
BURIALS
Eszter Istvánovits & Valéria Kulcsár
The past twenty-five years have greatly enriched our
knowledge of Sarmatian burial rites and, indirectly, of their
religious beliefs. Although many graves had been earlier unearthed (even if very few larger cemetery sections), only a
fraction of these burials had been published according to
modern standards. Grave drawings and cemetery maps, indispensable for the analysis of the burial rite, were rarely included and as a result there were many inaccuracies and,
also, misconceptions in our knowledge of the various elements of the burial rite. One of the problems in this respect
is the separation of the funeral customs that can be traced to
the earlier, eastern Sarmatian homeland and the ones that
only characterized the Sarmatians of the Carpathian Basin.
The exact dating of the graves from the earliest Sarmatian settlement territory in the northern part of the Danube–Tisza Interfluve is rather difficult. The gold dress ornaments, earrings, torcs and gold and carnelian beads of
southern Russian and Ukrainian origin found in female
burials remained fashionable over a longer period of time. It
seems likely that the grave assemblages lacking Roman articles from neighbouring Pannonia are the earliest ones.
Graves with Roman brooches first appeared at the turn of
the 1st–2nd centuries. The graves of the next group of
Sarmatian immigrants included a number of more richly
furnished male burials as well. The eastern Sarmatian sword
with a ringed hilt and the golden strap end with a tamga, a
272 The Barbaricum in the Roman period
mark of the individual or the clan, are typical finds from
these graves (Figs 9–10).
Considerably more female graves are known from the
early period, in part due to the fact that male burials tend to
be more poorly furnished and that the modest finds rarely
enable a more accurate dating.
One of the most characteristic traits of the burial rite is
the orientation of the deceased. The Jazygians of the
Carpathian Basin buried their dead in a south to north oriented grave pit, with the head to the south. The graves of
the next wave of immigrants, arriving at the close of the 2nd
century, were usually oriented to the north. It has been
demonstrated that in addition to a number of other features, such as the position of the horse harness in the grave,
the types of horse harness and weapons, this indicates the
arrival of a mounted group from the Don delta at the time
of the Marcomannic wars.
It was earlier believed that the custom of raising a mound
over the grave, so widespread among the eastern Sarmatian
tribes, was not practiced in the Great Hungarian Plain, and
that the newcomers adopted the custom of burying the dead
in ‘unmarked’ graves. Burials mounds from this period have
only been reported from two areas: the northern part of the
Fig. 9. Sword with ringed hilt from Újszilvás
Fig. 10. Golden strap end from Dunaharaszti
Fig. 11. Sarmatian tumuli at Vácszentlászló–Harmincadhányás
The archaeology of the Sarmatian territories | 273
Great Hungarian Plain and some areas of the Baèka and the
Banat. Few burial mounds, so-called kurgans, have survived in
Hungary since most have been ploughed away. Some can still
be seen in areas that have not been drawn under agricultural
cultivation, in marshy or forested areas, such as the burial
mound groups in the Hortobágy, the Sarmatian kurgans in
the Gödöllõ Hills and in the Baèka and Banat (Fig. 11).
Graves without a burial mound that were enclosed by
circular ditches open to the south, a practice recalling eastern burial rites, were first observed in the Great Hungarian
Plain in the early 1950s. It is generally assumed that a
mound had originally been raised over the burials enclosed
by ditches. The cemeteries containing burials enclosed by a
circular ditch show a rather even distribution in the Great
Hungarian Plain. Only a handful of sites with such graves
were known until the late 1970s. By 1980, their number
grew to thirty and today some fifty sites with graves of this
type have been registered. Almost every larger Sarmatian
cemetery contains such burials, suggesting that this custom
was fairly widespread and that these grave ditches had probably been missed during earlier excavations.
The number of cemeteries in which the burial rite could
be clearly be observed has increased greatly. It could be
demonstrated in several cases that the graves enclosed by a
ditch occupied a central position within a cemetery or a
grave group, indicating that these were the burials of the paterfamilias or the ancestors of an extended family. The simpler burials were arranged around these graves. In other
cases, the burials lay a little farther away and were arranged
into rows. Cemeteries of this type were unearthed at Törökszentmiklós–Surány and Endrõd–Szujókereszt. At Lajosmizse–Kónya-major, the female and male burials lay in
separate parts of the cemetery, while at Sárdorfalva–Eperjes
the men and the boys were buried with their weapons in the
central part of the small cemetery surrounded by a ditch,
while the women and the lower ranking members of the
community were buried around them.
A number of previously unknown elements of the
Sarmatians’ burial rites could be observed in the cemetery
section excavated at Szõdliget–Csörög in the mid-1990s.
The postholes uncovered in one of the graves indicated that
the deceased had probably been laid on a bier, a practice
that has also been documented among the Avars. The remains of fire beside or inside some graves, perhaps the remains of a ceremony to commemorate the dead, were noted
at this site for the first time in the Carpathian Basin.
Several differences can be demonstrated between the
burials in the Carpathian Basin and those in the eastern
steppe. The graves in the Great Hungarian Plain usually
contain fewer finds than the ones unearthed in southern
Russia and the Ukraine, and the burial rite itself is also less
varied. One of the reasons for this is that the graves in the
Great Hungarian Plain were often robbed and we can no
Fig. 12. Female burial, with the reconstruction of the belt.
Endrõd–Szujókereszt
274 The Barbaricum in the Roman period
longer tell what articles had been originally deposited beside the deceased and what the grave had originally looked
like – whether it had a side-ledge or had contained a bier –
and it is equally difficult to reconstruct the customs associated with the funerary rites. Another reason for this apparent ‘poverty’ is that the Sarmatians of the Great Hungarian
Plain had settled far from their eastern kinsmen and there
was practically no contact between them, this being the reasons that eastern articles were no longer deposited in the
graves after some time. Another reason for the differences
in the burial rites can no doubt be sought in the cultural impact of the neighbouring peoples, first of all the Romans.
The analysis of the burial rites offers many clues for ethnic
attribution. The period preceding the Hun invasion saw the
arrival of various population groups, as well as a tendency towards the ‘uniformization’ of the costume worn by these peoples, another difficulty when attempting the ethnic separation of grave finds. The burial rites, however, are the most
conservative elements of a culture since they are bound to religious beliefs by a thousand strands. The analysis of the
burial rites and the grave goods enabled the separation of a
late Sarmatian/Alan group on the northern fringes of the
Great Hungarian Plain. The cemeteries of this group were
unearthed at Tiszavalk, Tiszakarád and Tiszadob. Beside the
traditional costume articles and the burial rites, various
artefacts from the east and articles modelled on eastern prototypes occurred among the grave goods. New eastern burial
rites could also be observed. Comparable finds were made on
some of the sites that were investigated during the rescue excavations preceding the construction of the M3 motorway.
The finds from these excavations will no doubt contribute to
a better understanding of this period.
The Sarmatians’ costume can be reconstructed from the
carefully excavated and documented graves. In the early
phase, round carnelian beads were worn around the neck
and sometimes on the arms together with gold jewellery.
Roman brooches (fibulae) and the distinctive bead-embroi-
Fig. 13. Straps of a buckled boot
dered costume of Sarmatian women appeared around the
late 1st and the early 2nd century. The neck, the sleeves and
the hemline of the overgarment was richly embroidered
with colourful beads, as was the shift worn under it and the
lower part of wide-legged trousers. The dress was fastened
on the left side with a textile belt fitted with a metal ring.
This belt was also profusely decorated with beadwork, rattles, bells and pendants that were believed to ward off evil
(Fig. 12). Smaller knives were suspended from the belt. The
gold jewellery of eastern origin was replaced by silver and
bronze ornaments (earrings, torcs, bracelets, lunular and
axe shaped pendants). In addition to the customary grave
goods, such as spindle-whorls and vessels, metal mirrors too
made their appearance – the latter were often broken before
being deposited in the grave.
Male burials were rather modest compared to female
ones. Roman brooches fastened the upper garment, the
leather belt was fastened with an iron, bronze or silver
buckle and a leather pouch containing a strike-a-light,
flints, an awl or other smaller tools, was suspended from the
Fig. 14. Detail of a female
burial with jewellery.
Tiszaföldvár–Téglagyár
The archaeology of the Sarmatian territories | 275
belt. The knife was kept in a wooden or leather case. Very
few graves with weapons are known from this period.
Eastern costume articles again appear with the new population groups arriving at the close of the 2nd century. Female burials yielded belt pendants of Cypraea shell, a symbol of fertility, while the warriors’ graves usually contained
boot straps ornamented with narrow buckles and strap
ends, as well as the occasional pair of spurs (Fig. 13).
Eastern articles again disappeared from the burials within a
few generations and were replaced by Roman or local products. The appearance of funeral obuli in male graves, usually
placed in a beaded pouch, can be ascribed to Roman cultural
influence. Women’s costume continued to be embroidered
with beads and the popularity of silver and bronze jewellery,
as well as of bead necklaces and bracelets remained unbroken.
Articles of eastern origin appeared again with the arrival of
groups fleeing the Huns at the end of the 4th century: marine
shell talismans and gold jewellery in female burials and a wide
array of weapons, buckles and strap ends in male ones. Several
bracelets were worn on both arms and dresses were fastened
with several brooches (Fig. 14).
SETTLEMENTS
Andrea Vaday
The Great Hungarian Plain is not a uniform region in
terms of its geography and natural resources, this being one
of the reasons that the settlements uncovered in various areas differ. Another reason for this diversity is to be sought
in ethnic and economic differences.
Earlier excavations usually uncovered smaller settlement
sections and only a fraction of the finds was published. A conceptual change could be noted in the reports on the smaller
settlement sections investigated in the Middle Tisza region:
in addition to the publication of the entire find material, the
zoological finds were also included. The settlement features
unearthed on these sites, however, were mostly storage and
refuse pits, with the occasional house. The overall layout and
the nature of these settlements could hardly be reconstructed
from these pits, and neither could the internal chronology of
the settlements be established.
A multi-period site was unearthed at Gyoma as part of
the Microregion Research Project of the Great Hungarian
Plain. In contrast to the earlier practice, the finds from the
sites, representing various periods, were published in one
volume, together with the zoological material and the results of the pollen analyses. It has by now become a standard
procedure to publish not only the archaeological finds from
an excavation, but also the analytical results and the findings
of geophysical surveys and subsurface probes, if these techniques had been used for investigating a site. The information gained from more recent excavations have added a
number of details to the rather sketchy picture of Sarmatian
settlement patterns in the Carpathian Basin.
The semi-nomadic Jazygians who arrived here in the 1st
century probably established temporary campsites at first,
none of which have yet been identified. Their lifeways only
changed in the earlier 2nd century: while preserving their nomadic economy based on stockbreeding, settlements engaged
in agricultural cultivation also appeared. Settlement structures show a great diversity, depending on the region, the
function of the settlement and the ethnic composition of its
occupations. It was earlier believed that the Sarmatian settlements in the central and southern areas of the Great Hungarian Plain were characterized by a few houses and many refuse
pits, while the settlements on the fringes had fewer refuse pits
and more houses. This general picture was based on the findings of rescue excavations conducted over small areas and the
comparison of the few known sites from the southern and
northern part of the Great Hungarian Plain.
The layout of a settlement is greatly influenced by the
lifeways of its occupants. Settlements occupied over a longer
period of time that retained their original layout usually have
storage and refuse pits dug beside the houses. Since it was
near-impossible to set up a finer internal chronology for the
different settlement features owing to the smallness of the excavated area and the fact that the find material had not been
analyzed in detail, settlements occupied for a long time that
preserved their original layout became ‘multi-pit’ sites compared to more briefly occupied ones. Well-documented excavations conducted over larger areas offer more information
on the settlement structure and its changes.
The Sarmatians established their settlements by watercourses and natural waters, on elevations rising slightly over
the plain. The settlement layout was adapted to the natural
terrain, with the settlement usually extending along the
banks of a river or lake. Many settlements lay by streams
that were probably still active during the Roman period, but
have by now been filled up. Settlements lying farther from
water were supplied by water artificially and in these cases
there was no need for the settlements to follow the watercourse, allowing it to grow and spread more freely. Roadside settlements probably followed the line of the road, resembling modern villages.
The field surveys conducted in the Middle Tisza region revealed that the Sarmatian settlements lay fairly close to each
other. Some of these settlement chains were coeval, others
were not. The former are only known from the late Sarmatian period, from the phase preceding the arrival of the
Huns and from the Hun period. Most of them appear to have
been larger farmsteads surrounded by arable lands and pastures, resembling the present-day clusters of farmsteads. The
situation is slightly different in the case of settlement chains
with sites dating from different periods. These settlements
were most often established in the 2nd and 3rd centuries and
remained occupied until the close of the 4th century or the
earlier 5th century. This settlement pattern can most likely be
explained by the practice of abandoning the settlement when
the nearby fields became exhausted, with the occupants of the
settlement moving closer to the new fields. In these cases, the
successive layers of the settlement do not accumulate over
276 The Barbaricum in the Roman period
Fig. 15. Section of a Sarmatian settlement with the animal pens. Northern junction of the M5 motorway at Kiskunfélegyháza
each other, but simply ‘shift’ to a new location, meaning that
the structure and internal layout of settlements with a longer
use-life changed over time.
Although the overall size of these settlements can rarely
be determined since not one single site has been completely
excavated, size estimates can nonetheless be made for a few
sites. On the testimony of the aerial photos and the field
surveys, the settlement at Gyoma extended over an area of
some 35–40,000 m2, of which about 14,700 m2 was excavated, while at Polgár–Kengyelköz, the aerial photos suggested that the settlement extended for another 6–700 m
beyond the investigated 30,000 m2 large area. At Kompolt–
Kistér the field surveys suggested that the settlement extended for an additional 350–400 m to the west and some
200–250 m to north and the south beyond the 28,700 m2
large excavated area, suggesting that the overall size of the
settlement was around 190,000–192,000 m2. At the nearby
site of Kompolt–Kistéri-tanya, the western boundary of the
settlement fell into the 32,370 m2 large investigated area,
but the settlement itself extended well beyond this area.
The above clearly show that even though much larger settlement sections are now unearthed than previously, we still
know little about the overall layout of these settlements.
Nothing is known about the size and layout of the Jazygian
‘towns’ listed by Ptolemy, of which ‘Partiskon’ can be identified with present-day Szeged. We know that many Sarmatian
sites were clustered around the Roman watchtower by the
crossing place on the Tisza. A similar cluster of settlements
could be observed on the Barbarian side of the Roman border
near the Roman forts. The network of villages was no doubt
fairly dense along the roads leading through the Great Hungarian Plain. A chain of roadside settlements has been identified in the Törökszentmiklós area, where settlements and cemeteries lay along a 7–8 km section of the road leading eastwards from the crossing place on the Tisza at Szolnok.
Ditch systems were observed on a number of sites. Some
of these were no doubt defensive in nature, while others
functioned as animal pens or as drainage ditches, and some
no doubt enclosed individual homesteads (Fig. 15).
The relationship between the ditches and the settlements
could be observed during the rescue excavations near Kiskunfélegyháza and Dusnok. The settlement at Polgár–Kengyel-köz, occupied between the later 3rd century and the
turn of the 4th–5th centuries, was bordered by a north to
south oriented system of parallel ditches. The outermost
ditch was the widest. A series of postholes was found on the
floor of the inner, much narrower and shallower ditch, suggesting a ditch and palisade structure.
Comparable settlement features were unearthed at the
Polgár–Csõszhalom-dûlõ site. At Nagymágocs, a village occupied from the close of the 4th century to the mid-5th century was bordered by two ditches, one facing the Mágocs
brook and one perpendicular to it. At Szentes–Berekhát, a
3rd–4th century settlement enclosed by ditches was unearthed during the rescue excavation preceding the construction of the bypass road. The roughly 5 m wide and 2 m
deep trench had steep walls. It bordered the village towards
the marshland, and together with the rampart constructed
The archaeology of the Sarmatian territories | 277
The sunken houses with wattle and daub or adobe walls
were usually built on the higher-lying part of the settlements. At Polgár, smaller streets ran between the residential
and the economic buildings. At Tiszaföldvár, at the Kompolt sites and at Gyoma, the settlement structure was
looser. The location of the houses and their outbuildings
did not appear to follow a systematic plan.
The workshops usually lay beyond the houses, near the
boundary of the village, and the direction of the prevailing
wind appears to have been an important consideration in
their siting. Some workshops were found beside the craftsman’s house. Wells and cisterns were dug either near watercourses or between the houses. They are often vital to determining the internal chronology of a settlement since
shorter and longer periods can be distinguished in their fill
(Fig. 16).
The houses were surrounded by beehive shaped or cylindrical storage pits. Agricultural settlements usually had
Fig. 17. Human remains thrown into a refuse pit.
Kompolt–Kistéri-tanya
Fig. 16. Sarmatian well. Kompolt–Kistéri-tanya
from the earth removed during the digging of the ditch, it
protected the village from floods. A similarly wide and deep
ditch was identified at the Tiszaföldvár–Téglagyár site on
the side facing the Tisza. Besides offering adequate protection against floods, these ditch and rampart systems also
had a defensive role, as the one with the palisade at the Polgár–Kengyel-köz site. A settlement and a late Sarmatian
cemetery from the period after the abandonment of the settlement was found at Mezõszemere–Kismari-Feneke, together with a section of the Devil’s Dyke. Another earthwork rampart ran parallel to the Devil’s Dyke in the
Sarmatian territory and behind this second earthwork there
was a palisade construction with gates and ramps.
278 The Barbaricum in the Roman period
more storage pits and the same holds true for the settlements from the periods when the population of the Great
Hungarian Plain increased significantly owing to new waves
of immigrants, and agricultural production was more intensive in order to provide for the population. Several oven and
kiln types can be distinguished on the basis of the finds, including baking and drying ovens, as well as pottery kilns.
Some settlements were abandoned by their occupants,
while others were destroyed during times of war as shown
by their destruction layer. The human remains thrown into
refuse pits can be linked to these troubled times, corresponding to the Marcomannic wars and the military clashes
at the close of the Hun period (Fig. 17).
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE
NORTHERN AND NORTHEASTERN
FRINGES OF THE SARMATIAN
SETTLEMENT TERRITORY
Eszter Istvánovits & Valéria Kulcsár
The earliest settlements in the northeastern part of the Barbaricum in the Carpathian Basin are known from the SzatmárBereg plain. The Beregsurány settlement was probably established sometime in the final decades of the 1st century. The
settlement at Csengersima, investigated in 1998–99, can be
dated to approximately the same period. Traces of metalworking were also found at this site. The ratio of wheelturned pottery is negligible in the rich ceramic material recovered from the settlement. The settlement structure and the
various settlement features differed from the ones observed in
the Sarmatian heartland, owing to the differing geographic
environment. The construction of timber-framed buildings is
one indication of this. The best analogies to the archaeological finds from these two sites are to be found partly in the Germanic Przeworsk culture and partly in the Dacian territory,
suggesting that the Dacians who previously occupied this area
had encountered and mingled with the Germanic groups arriving from the north at a fairly early date. The immigration of
Germanic groups before the mid-2nd century is also indicated
by the finds from the burial ground uncovered at Malaya
Kopania in the Sub-Carpathians. It has been suggested on the
basis of the written sources that the early finds of the
Przeworsk culture can be associated with the Lugii or the
Buri, both Germanic tribes.
According to historical data, the Vandals/Victovali settled
in the Upper Tisza region in the mid-2nd century, before the
Marcomannic wars. The archaeological record confirms
their presence in this area: this Germanic group can be identified with the second wave of the Przeworsk culture. The
newcomers occupied the northeastern corner of the Carpathian Basin, including the plainland in the Sub-Carpathians. The cremation burials of this population, such as
the ones uncovered at Kécske, Tiszakanyár and Kisvárda–TV
tower, contained iron shield bosses, spurs with large spikes,
heavy double-edged swords and spearheads. Unfortunately,
none of the find assemblages discovered earlier come from
systematic excavations and not one single burial that could be
associated with this population has been reported from the
past two decades; the control excavations on sites such as
Kisvárda–TV tower did not yield any results.
The Vandals’ southern and southeastern expansion was
checked by the Sarmatians who, on the testimony of the archaeological finds, also reached this region sometime in the
Fig. 18. Charcoal kiln (?).
Csengersima
The archaeology of the northern and northeastern fringes of the Sarmatian settlement territory | 279
Fig. 19. Timber-framed
sunken house.
Beregsurány–Barátság-kert
mid-2nd century. Intermingling between the two populations proceeded quite rapidly in the contact zone between
the two groups, as shown by a number of Vandal articles,
such as shield bosses, found in Sarmatian graves.
The mixed Daco-Germanic assemblages of the type
found at Beregsurány and Csengersima were supplanted by
a new culture in the later 3rd century. A high number of
grey, wheel-turned wares with stamped decoration was
found. Even though the late Roman period settlement
Fig. 20. Pottery kiln. Csengersima
partly overlapped with the earlier one at both sites, the distinctive stamped pottery was entirely absent from the ceramic inventory of the latter, indicating the chronological
differences between the two, as well as the sharp break between the two material cultures (Figs 18–19).
The late Roman period settlement at Beregsurány was
excavated by Dezsõ Csallány in the late 1960s. One of the
largest potters’ centres in Europe was uncovered on the
bank of the Mic stream. Some forty thousand sherds were
280 The Barbaricum in the Roman period
recovered from fifty-two grated kilns. Six similar potter’s
kilns were unearthed at Csengersima (Fig. 20).
In addition to the grey stamped vessels, many Roman
wares, including wheel-turned pots and a variety of painted
vessels were also found. The stamped pottery has much in
common with similar wares turned out by the Roman pottery
workshop of Porolissum in the nearby province of Dacia and
the date of the sites too suggests that Roman potters were also
active in the Barbaricum (primarily at Csengersima). Their
appearance in the Barbaricum can be associated with the
gradual deterioration of the situation in Dacia and its later
evacuation and abandonment by the Romans. Grey pottery
with stamped decoration had a fairly wide distribution, reaching even areas in Poland. The ethnic attribution of the peoples making and using this pottery is controversial since many
different peoples are known to have lived in the area where it
was distributed. No burials of the late Roman period have yet
been found in the Szatmár-Bereg plain, adding yet another
difficulty to resolving this question.
Neither do we know when life came to end on these settlements. The vessel forms would suggest that the potters
were still active in the Hun period.
RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES
Andrea Vaday & Gábor Márkus
Until the 1970s, our picture of the Barbaricum was essentially
based on the information provided by burials. The few inves-
Fig. 22. Sarmatian-Quadic settlement. Vác–Csörögi-rét
Fig. 21. Distribution of Sarmatian sites excavated between 1971 and
1995
tigated settlement sections did not play a decisive role in the
interpretation of the archaeological heritage of the peoples
who lived here. Even though the burials do offer a fairly good
idea of attitudes to death, the funerary customs of different social groups and the changes in the burial rite over time reveal
very little about day-to-day life, of which a better understanding can only be gained from the investigation of settlements.
Until the mid-20th century, the ratio of the settlements was
less than 1 per cent among the known sites of the Barbaricum.
This ratio has since changed significantly (Fig. 21).
The publication of the find assemblages recovered from
settlements and cemeteries, whose number has increased
vastly owing to the more recent large-scale excavations,
calls for the elaboration of new analytical methods and, obviously, for new ways of looking at the finds (Fig. 22).