Sheep rump as food offering in the Carpathian basin and Eastern Europe in the 6th–7th centuries A.D.

Gulyás Bence – Lőrinczy Gábor – Anton Sztrokov / Bence Gulyás – Gábor Lőrinczy – Anton Sztrokov

Hadak útján. A népvándorláskor kutatóinak XXIX. konferenciája. Budapest, 2019. november 15–16. 29th Conference of scholars on the Migration Period. November 15–16, 2019, Budapest

MŐK Kiadványok 4.1 (2022) 297–308

DOI 10.55722/Arpad.Kiad.2021.4.1_16

67 után egy olyan népesség települt le a Tiszántúlon, mely a temetkezési szokásaival elkülönült az ázsiai eredetű „avaroktól”. Ezek – például a K–Ny­i, ÉK–DNy­i tájolás, a padkás, a padmalyos és a fülkesí­rok használata, a részleges ló­, szarvasmarha­ és kiskérődző vázak, valamint edények sírba helyezése – nem csak itt, hanem az 5–7. századi kelet­európai nomád jellegű sírokban is megfigyelhetők. Tanulmányunkban egy újabb kapcsolódási pontot, az ételmellékletként előkerülő juh keresztcsontok előfordulását vizsgáljuk.

Kulcsszavak: kora avar kor, temetkezési szokások, juh keresztcsont, Szivasovka­típusú temetkezések, Tiszántúl, Kelet­Európa

In the mid-6th century, a certain population settled in the Tiszántúl Region (Eastern Hungary). Its funeral customs – the E–W, NE–SW orientation of the deceased, graves and graves with niche or ledges, the horse, cattle and sheep skulls and legs deposited in the graves – are also common among contemporary the East European nomads. In the present article, we examined another burial rites – e.g. the sheep tails which were placed into the graves as food offering. It was in the Tiszántúl Region uncommon, however, the sacra, the lumbar vertebrae and coccyges were documented rarely in the past, so their actual number may have been higher. In the cemetery of Szegvár-Oromdűlő, it was recorded in more than 100 graves. Their appearance was not related with any sex or age groups. The custom of placing sheep rumps in graves continued during Late Avar period as well, mostly in those cemeteries, where the end-niche graves and animal skins also can be found (e.g. Pitvaros, Székkutas etc.). This type of food offering is also known from eight nomadic graves between the 5th century and the second third of the 7th centuries AD. Based on the burial inventory, seven of them were found in the graves of male persons, while only one burial belonged to a woman. There was not any correlation between the occurrence of the sheep rumps and the quantity and quality of the grave goods.

Keywords: Early Avar period, burial rites, sheep rump, Sivashovka-type burial, Tiszántúl region, Eastern Europe