D. Ložnjak Dizdar, M. Dizdar (eds.), LATE BRONZE AGE MORTUARY PRACTICES AND SOCIETY IN THECARPATHIAN BASIN — Proceedings of the International conference in Zagreb, February 9 — 10, 2017 Zagreb, 2019, 2020
The crucial element of Urnfield culture were the cremation burials concentrated in different spat... more The crucial element of Urnfield culture were the cremation burials concentrated in different spatial relations to the living communities.
Discussing the cemetery in Zavrč, Slovenia, might enable us to propose a location of the cemetery, not only in a physical environment but in an
ideologically created and sustained landscape — a cultural context with fluid boundaries between the sacred and the everyday. An attempt might
help us to unravel the multiple levels at which sacred sites interacted with a diverse range of communities and negotiated between these
in space and time. Rather than observing the urnfield cemetery in Zavrč and the finds in terms of styles and chronology, this paper will try to distinguish variations in burial rites as reflections of ritual instruments that integrated individuals and communities into a cultural fabric.
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the paper traces the biography of this significant Celtic assemblage and the interconnected lives of stakeholders – state officials and private collectors – united by a shared interest in the past.
Spanning the late Austro-Hungarian Empire through the interwar period to the aftermath of World War II, it highlights the assemblage’s navigation of public and private spheres amidst political and cultural upheaval. Focusing on Count Domokos Teleki and his engagement with the Transylvanian Museum Society, the paper investigates the fate of his private collection during World War I. By using unpublished archival materials and correspondence, it reconstructs the assemblage’s discovery, exchange, display, and scholarly treatment while exploring the emotional and intellectual contexts of those involved. The Mureș River serves as a symbolic boundary reflecting the shifting identities of that era.
Ultimately, this narrative illustrates how material culture and personal motivations intersected with broader historiographic trends, providing new insights into Transylvania’s cultural legacy during a pivotal moment.
culture, which has been discussed in detail. Most of these artefacts come from various graves and necropoles, although there was much less information about these contexts. This paper presents for the first time a complete concept of the archaeology of death in Osor. It is based on archive records and results of new archaeological investigations gathering all the available data. They are presented with a topographical overview and the location of the graves in their chronological order, with the typology of the burials and their contextualization in relation to their positions inside and outside the urban space. Already known, but also unknown or less available data were analysed in order to create, as far as possible, a well-rounded knowledge of this extremely important social and cultural aspect of life (and death) in prehistoric Osor.
Consequently, the sword with its scabbard becomes a symbol of communications and interaction – linking communities, production centres, and group as well as individual identities within the dynamic
realm of the Middle La Tène world.
Key words: authenticity, cultural tourism, cultural heritage, archaeology, ICT, disabilities
Discussing the cemetery in Zavrč, Slovenia, might enable us to propose a location of the cemetery, not only in a physical environment but in an
ideologically created and sustained landscape — a cultural context with fluid boundaries between the sacred and the everyday. An attempt might
help us to unravel the multiple levels at which sacred sites interacted with a diverse range of communities and negotiated between these
in space and time. Rather than observing the urnfield cemetery in Zavrč and the finds in terms of styles and chronology, this paper will try to distinguish variations in burial rites as reflections of ritual instruments that integrated individuals and communities into a cultural fabric.
A fragmented terracotta depiction of a human head from Pharos, a Greek apoikia established in the 4th century B.C. in Stari Grad on the island of Hvar in Croatia, exhibits a strange facial morphology – the bushy moustache allows us to interpret the image as a representation of an archetypal barbarian of the old world, i.e. as a depiction of a Celt. The present example of material culture, discovered in an archaeological context from the 4th century B.C., is a per excellence illustration of how people and ideas moved – they came from the other side of civilizations, from the northern part of the Apennine Peninsula. This barbarian stands with his physical materiality as a metaphor for the horror or destruction imposed upon the civilized world when people like him moved across the territory of northern Italy in large numbers. Feared and admired for their bravery and loyalty, they were soon incorporated into political plans and agendas of the rulers of the region – Celtic mercenaries became a major contribution to the military potential of the Hellenic states and warlords. Adopted by Hellenistic mythology, the Celts were presented with an origin that placed them inside the indefinite position between civilization’s builders and destroyers.
Iconographically, the rhyta were mostly interpreted as an essential ritual vessel, as the symbol of the continuity of life celebrated on festivities. It became therefore accepted that rhyta as symbols and attributes of Dionysus as well as of heroes and heroized ancestors, were the reception of the unification of death and divine. On the territory of the Eastern Adriatic and it’s hinterland we have detailed knowledge about only two contexts of discoveries – of rhyta from Stična and Jezerine. Further, we can ascribe to burials the rhyta from Tujan and Nesactium, while the finds from Valtida, Trogir and Palagruža should be considered as elements of the banquet service used during specific ceremonies in settlements or on specific ritual grounds. Their use was based on an existent ideology embedded within the societies, which had the communal feasting ritual at its core, an ideology susceptible to symbols coming from Mediterranean production centres. Focusing on rhyta as symbols of Mediterranean imports, our archaeological interpretations will become more culturally sensitive and anthropologically relevant by focusing on culture contact and redistribution of material culture.
Contrary to the numerous settlements from this period, only two cemeteries have thus far been unearthed, of which only the cemetery
at Zavrč, with a larger number of graves and a long period of use, is suitable for a discussion on the regional cultural evolution of the Urnfield culture. Preliminary publications of the graves from the earliest phase of burial have presented us with the opportunity to observe the interaction between the formal characteristics of the pottery and the burial rituals only present in the present-day NE Slovenia with those of the Virovitica group. The results indicate that the earliest urn graves in the region may be synchronised with the presence of formal elements of the Virovitica cultural group in settlements and, consequently, date the beginning of the Urnfield culture in the region as early as the late 15th and early 14th century BC.
grave 127 from the necropolis in Pobrežje (Slovenia). The discovered finds were analyzed applying the classical archaeological method – they were compared in a regional and a broader cultural area with the grave 4/1911 from Velika Gorica (Croatia) and the hoard from Fridolfing (Germany). Present elements of jewellery, their state of preservation and ritual manipulation of individual other grave goods, were considered in interaction, further in symbolic significance of material culture and in the context of the mode and type of burial or deposition itself. In its typological-stylistic focus the evaluation was directed towards the interpretation of passementerie fibulae – especially the fibulae with multiple spirals of the Pobrežje type, further the trapezoidal-anthropomorphic pendants but also the great knives of Vadena type discovered in graves of prominent females. Intensifying the connectedness in the set of attire, it is clearly visible and ceremonially also understandable – it conjured the dynamic of solar symbolism, imbued with the complex perception of eternal revival and vitality. Grave inventories from Pobrežje and Velika Gorica were arguably determined as eminent female burials reflecting local manifestations of Ruše or Velika Gorica cultural group in the period from the 11th century BC synchronized with Ha B2/3 horizon of Central
European periodization. This was a period when, on the exceptional geographic territory of the Drava and Sava river corridors, were set up strong contacts of old (Carpathian-Pannonian) and new (Alpine) cultural and technological influences which created through merging of different traditions unique and recognizable regional aesthetics of multiple significances.
the paper traces the biography of this significant Celtic assemblage and the interconnected lives of stakeholders – state officials and private collectors – united by a shared interest in the past.
Spanning the late Austro-Hungarian Empire through the interwar period to the aftermath of World War II, it highlights the assemblage’s navigation of public and private spheres amidst political and cultural upheaval. Focusing on Count Domokos Teleki and his engagement with the Transylvanian Museum Society, the paper investigates the fate of his private collection during World War I. By using unpublished archival materials and correspondence, it reconstructs the assemblage’s discovery, exchange, display, and scholarly treatment while exploring the emotional and intellectual contexts of those involved. The Mureș River serves as a symbolic boundary reflecting the shifting identities of that era.
Ultimately, this narrative illustrates how material culture and personal motivations intersected with broader historiographic trends, providing new insights into Transylvania’s cultural legacy during a pivotal moment.
culture, which has been discussed in detail. Most of these artefacts come from various graves and necropoles, although there was much less information about these contexts. This paper presents for the first time a complete concept of the archaeology of death in Osor. It is based on archive records and results of new archaeological investigations gathering all the available data. They are presented with a topographical overview and the location of the graves in their chronological order, with the typology of the burials and their contextualization in relation to their positions inside and outside the urban space. Already known, but also unknown or less available data were analysed in order to create, as far as possible, a well-rounded knowledge of this extremely important social and cultural aspect of life (and death) in prehistoric Osor.
Consequently, the sword with its scabbard becomes a symbol of communications and interaction – linking communities, production centres, and group as well as individual identities within the dynamic
realm of the Middle La Tène world.
Key words: authenticity, cultural tourism, cultural heritage, archaeology, ICT, disabilities
Discussing the cemetery in Zavrč, Slovenia, might enable us to propose a location of the cemetery, not only in a physical environment but in an
ideologically created and sustained landscape — a cultural context with fluid boundaries between the sacred and the everyday. An attempt might
help us to unravel the multiple levels at which sacred sites interacted with a diverse range of communities and negotiated between these
in space and time. Rather than observing the urnfield cemetery in Zavrč and the finds in terms of styles and chronology, this paper will try to distinguish variations in burial rites as reflections of ritual instruments that integrated individuals and communities into a cultural fabric.
A fragmented terracotta depiction of a human head from Pharos, a Greek apoikia established in the 4th century B.C. in Stari Grad on the island of Hvar in Croatia, exhibits a strange facial morphology – the bushy moustache allows us to interpret the image as a representation of an archetypal barbarian of the old world, i.e. as a depiction of a Celt. The present example of material culture, discovered in an archaeological context from the 4th century B.C., is a per excellence illustration of how people and ideas moved – they came from the other side of civilizations, from the northern part of the Apennine Peninsula. This barbarian stands with his physical materiality as a metaphor for the horror or destruction imposed upon the civilized world when people like him moved across the territory of northern Italy in large numbers. Feared and admired for their bravery and loyalty, they were soon incorporated into political plans and agendas of the rulers of the region – Celtic mercenaries became a major contribution to the military potential of the Hellenic states and warlords. Adopted by Hellenistic mythology, the Celts were presented with an origin that placed them inside the indefinite position between civilization’s builders and destroyers.
Iconographically, the rhyta were mostly interpreted as an essential ritual vessel, as the symbol of the continuity of life celebrated on festivities. It became therefore accepted that rhyta as symbols and attributes of Dionysus as well as of heroes and heroized ancestors, were the reception of the unification of death and divine. On the territory of the Eastern Adriatic and it’s hinterland we have detailed knowledge about only two contexts of discoveries – of rhyta from Stična and Jezerine. Further, we can ascribe to burials the rhyta from Tujan and Nesactium, while the finds from Valtida, Trogir and Palagruža should be considered as elements of the banquet service used during specific ceremonies in settlements or on specific ritual grounds. Their use was based on an existent ideology embedded within the societies, which had the communal feasting ritual at its core, an ideology susceptible to symbols coming from Mediterranean production centres. Focusing on rhyta as symbols of Mediterranean imports, our archaeological interpretations will become more culturally sensitive and anthropologically relevant by focusing on culture contact and redistribution of material culture.
Contrary to the numerous settlements from this period, only two cemeteries have thus far been unearthed, of which only the cemetery
at Zavrč, with a larger number of graves and a long period of use, is suitable for a discussion on the regional cultural evolution of the Urnfield culture. Preliminary publications of the graves from the earliest phase of burial have presented us with the opportunity to observe the interaction between the formal characteristics of the pottery and the burial rituals only present in the present-day NE Slovenia with those of the Virovitica group. The results indicate that the earliest urn graves in the region may be synchronised with the presence of formal elements of the Virovitica cultural group in settlements and, consequently, date the beginning of the Urnfield culture in the region as early as the late 15th and early 14th century BC.
grave 127 from the necropolis in Pobrežje (Slovenia). The discovered finds were analyzed applying the classical archaeological method – they were compared in a regional and a broader cultural area with the grave 4/1911 from Velika Gorica (Croatia) and the hoard from Fridolfing (Germany). Present elements of jewellery, their state of preservation and ritual manipulation of individual other grave goods, were considered in interaction, further in symbolic significance of material culture and in the context of the mode and type of burial or deposition itself. In its typological-stylistic focus the evaluation was directed towards the interpretation of passementerie fibulae – especially the fibulae with multiple spirals of the Pobrežje type, further the trapezoidal-anthropomorphic pendants but also the great knives of Vadena type discovered in graves of prominent females. Intensifying the connectedness in the set of attire, it is clearly visible and ceremonially also understandable – it conjured the dynamic of solar symbolism, imbued with the complex perception of eternal revival and vitality. Grave inventories from Pobrežje and Velika Gorica were arguably determined as eminent female burials reflecting local manifestations of Ruše or Velika Gorica cultural group in the period from the 11th century BC synchronized with Ha B2/3 horizon of Central
European periodization. This was a period when, on the exceptional geographic territory of the Drava and Sava river corridors, were set up strong contacts of old (Carpathian-Pannonian) and new (Alpine) cultural and technological influences which created through merging of different traditions unique and recognizable regional aesthetics of multiple significances.
change in the financial performance within the field and at the same time a conceptual turn,
or a huge leap back. But was this a major contribution to the “science of” archaeology or a
leak towards the “science for” archaeology? And did this process augment the
interpretative potential of archaeology, or did it just slow down and reduce the explanatory
potential of the latter? Or even worst, did the results expose the conceptual problems
behind the forceful conjunction between natural sciences and humanities?
Perhaps the worst situation is in the field of radiometric dating. Becoming cheaper and
widely accessible, and even commanded in numerous instances, it became a metaphor for
the applications and misapplications of a tool designed to become a part of the solution of
archaeological difficulties. Today it functions in the archaeological discourse, assuming that
something like that exists, as an axis around which issues in methodology become exposed.
It functions as an accelerator to bring out the best and worst in archaeological
interpretation - the deeply rooted assumptions about the nature and age of the
archaeological record have, combined with a superficial reading of data, a potential to
pervert the benefits of absolute dating. The ability to perform the dating (financial and
technological) has instead of increasing the interpretative potential decreased the
methodological correctness of the latter. Conceptually, the archaeological interpretations
become, to be quicker published in high-impact journals, “liberated” of the rhetorical
“ballast” of interpretations and more and more focused on the plain reproductions of
results of analyses derived from natural sciences. It seems that in this ontological turn to
become more exact, archaeology voluntarily disincorporated its own legitimacy and it
abnegated its own intellectual tradition.
severo-vzhodne Hrvaške, kažejo, da je v 5. stoletju pred našim štetjem prišlo do drastičnih sprememb
poselitvenih vzorcev v regiji. Nekoč se je domnevalo, da je šlo za popolno depopulacijo prostora, danes
pa vemo, da so bile zgolj velike utrjene naselbine opuščene, v nižinah pa so se pojavile razpršene
manjše naselbine. Tradicionalno se je spremembe razlagalo z skrivnostnimi boleznimi o katerih so pisali
antični avtorji in ki naj bi prišle z vzhoda ali iz Sredozemlja. V desetletjih, ki so sledila, so arheološke
raziskave nekaterih uničenih naselbin pokazale, da bi morda za upad poselitve prav tako lahko krivili
vdore stepskih konjeniških ljudstev z vzhoda. V zadnjih letih pa so raziskave podnebja pokazale, da je
v tridesetih letih 5. stoletja pred našim štetjem prišlo do kratkotrajnih radikalnih podnebnih
sprememb. Sprememb o katerih lahko beremo tudi v delih antičnih avtorjev. Morda ni naključje, da je
prav v letih teh sprememb prišlo do izbruha kuge v Atenah – natančno opisane katastrofe, ki pa je
verjetno bila le manjši del kataklizmične epidemije, ki je prizadela celoten prostor zahodnega
Sredozemlja ter jugo-vzhodne in vzhodne Evrope. V predavanju bomo pokazali sovpadanje epidemij,
invazij in klimatskih sprememb, dejavnikov, ki so povzročili zaton nekdaj cvetečih
starejšeželeznodobnih skupnosti.
think so. By observing material culture, perceived as evidence of past people’s construction of their
material world, archaeologists interpret the quantity and quality of objects discovered as the reflection
of systems of inequality. If the latter refers to a social evaluation of whatever differences are regarded by a
given society as relevant, then dominance is the behavioural expression of these differences. Together
these two basic principles are the building blocks of social inequality. And, if border zones should be
considered, not only as natural environments in which cultural and economic contacts were taking place
from which societies were extracting resources to ensure their ideological reproduction and economic
prosperity but also as tools of ideological reproduction. We can be sure that people were loading
landscape with meaning – they were including the natural into their cultural and religious traditions.
Consequently, landscapes were not physical environments in which people lived, but were products
and reflections of various social, symbolic, individual, and collective as well as historical experiences
of acting. Moreover, within landscapes, border zones were the broadest reflections of social
inequalities.
coming from the East, the city-states in the Aegean plunged into a series of mutual conflicts
and consequently chaos. Hardy acquired positions of power were disintegrated, and
prestige started to leak away towards the new forming social elites in hinterlands of a
previously prosperous world.
Most important, the centres of power shifted – to the Central Mediterranean and Southern
Balkan. In an interconnected world, knitted together with new economic and political
relations, it was not only the current of more or less prestigious artefacts following the
imperialistic aspirations of rulers of the Argeade or Syracusan dynasties, but the people
also followed soon. Moreover, this was not a unidirectional process. The difference, and not
only cultural, became an everyday sight in cities and temples.
What seemed like an ideal state for the philosopher, became fast a nightmare for the
common man, and accelerate the rise of Archaia Makedonia. Exhausted from wars the
territory of the Aegean was struck by the severest climatic changes in the first millennium
BC coinciding with perhaps the worst epidemic in antiquity.
missed the explanatory potential of absolute dating – the results exposed the conceptual problems behind the forceful conjunction of research methods coming from natural sciences and humanities.
This became dramatically evident on the epistemological level of archaeological interpretation – the use of radiocarbon dating, instead of solving several archaeological questions, created new problems.
This paper will expose several examples where deeply rooted archaeological assumptions, combined with a superficial reading of data, caused manipulation with data and influenced interpretations.
Presented will be cases where a planned strategy of radiocarbon dating enabled the authors to formulate a new interpretation of archaeological data, but also cases where the authors, despite the results of dating, arranged the data to support the previous (traditional) knowledge.
Traditionally it was supposed that due to unknown reasons, the area of eastern Slovenia, together with the rest of the south-western Carpathian basin was depopulated at the end of the 6th century BC. Our discovery proved to be only another site in the region where the recently discovered archaeological record demonstrates that instead of a depopulation we are actually witnessing a change in the settlement patterns and perhaps a reorganization of the social structures of the society inhabiting these areas.
Of course the major interest of archaeological inquiry is not only the material culture, at least it’s indicative and communicative function, but its consumption which can signify a certain identity. And it is done in two ways - by the functional requirements related to one’s identity and the choices which indicate deliberate consumption (or in the case of burials appropriation) for the expression of one’s identity. In the case of Late Bronze Age burials interpreted as the burials of social elites, we can observe major differences in the manipulation with material culture. The grave goods indicating the functional requirements related to one’s identity (such as pottery, personal jewellery…indicating the age or sex) were manipulated in the same way as within the society while the items of deliberate appropriation (such as weapons, special jewellery, imported items…), interpreted as reflections of social inequality, were, although lacking a difference in the crucial material dimension of the objects being consumed, manipulated in a different way.
We will develop our narrative around three exceptional artefacts discovered –weaponry discovered in river Cetina in Dalmatia, terracotta head depicting a Celt discovered in Stari grad on island Hvar in Dalmatia and inscription discovered on the Acropolis in Athens. The first assemblage consists of a sword, fragment of a chape-end and a fragment of a belt chain. Stylistically and technologically linked to workshops from northern Italy these weapons were ascribed to Celtic mercenaries used in the imperial politics of Dionysus the Elder. A small terracotta depicting one of them was discovered in Stari grad, Greek Pharos, on the island of Hvar. Preserved facial features with a thick moustache demonstrate all the major characteristics of a visual canon used in the depiction of Celts. And finally, epigraphic evidence from an inventory list from the treasury of the old temple of Athena on the Acropolis in Athens, right in the heart of the Greek world, dated before the middle of the 4th century BC, mentioned the deposition of Celtic weapons.
All three sources, different in their kind and coming from different locations, demonstrate that Celtic groups were introduced into the wider Greek world already before the middle of the 4th century BC. Mercenaries, serving different parties and their imperial ambitions, were transported further and back across the Adriatic until they became known in the ancient world as the Adriatic Celts.
was deserted at the end of the 6th century BC. The recent discoveries in
last decades points to decrease in number of inhabitants. Above all, their
spatial distribution indicates change in settlement patterns. Rare finds
in this and neighbouring regions suggest that long-range communication
was not disrupted despite changes in social structure and settlement
organization, since local populations remained included in global cultural
and historical trends.
one of the main mechanisms used and misused, for shifting
the focus of historical research departing from generalized
grand narratives and introducing individuals with their
agencies into the focus of research. Consequently, numerous
historical “facts” or actually bits and pieces of ancient political
propaganda became questioned and revised.
je prikaz našega poznavanja preteklosti, ilustracija odnosa preteklih
družb do umrlih, pojasnitev vlog, ki so jih imele ženske v tedanjih družbah,
in najpomembneje – je pripoved o odnosu do smrti v prazgodovini.
Pogrebne prakse so navadno vezane na dolgoletne tradicije
in v starodavnih družbah o njih niso razpravljali. Povezane so
bile z mnenji o tem, kaj se je moralno storiti s pokojnikom
– čim prej upepeliti in preoblikovati telo ali ga inhumirati in
podaljšati proces preoblikovanja. Ravnanje z mrtvim telesom
in izvajanje obredov sta dejanji, ki izhajata iz kulturnih norm in
prepričanj o telesu ter umrlem. Grobna arhitektura in grobni
pridatki ter sam obred upepelitve so bili odraz naložbe, ki jo
je družba vložila v pokojnika. Naše dame niso bile pokopane
niti obrobno niti posebej dostojanstveno, kar kaže na to, da so
bile običajne in integrirane članice svojih skupnosti. Pa vendar
nam njihovi grobni pridatki kažejo, da so bile posebne, da
so bile nosilke tako družbenih kot kulturnih sporočil, varuhinje
tradicij ter šepetalke spominov. Dame, katerih tiha pripoved
povezuje njihov in naš čas.