A. Rustoiu/I. V. Ferencz, Craftsmanship and Identity. Tools and Utensils in La Tène Graves from the Eastern Carpathian Basin. Mousaios 23, 2020, 221-234. (original) (raw)
This article aims to discuss the ways in which the funerary inventories of the 4 th-3 rd centuries BC from the eastern Carpathian Basin, which include tools and utensils used by craftsmen, illustrate their professional identity. In rural societies of the 4 th-3 rd centuries BC from the Carpathian Basin, the social competition can be observed within the funerary domain by analysing the internal organization of the cemeteries in groups of graves. These groups more likely reflect the social organization of local communities in families or clans. The funerary inventories sometimes include panoplies of weapons and other times only sets of female jewellery and costume accessories indicating a specific social and gender identity. In this context, one question concerns the role of tools and utensils used in craftsmanship which were included in funerary inventories. From the archaeological perspective, the social and professional identity of the craftsmen from the eastern Carpathian Basin can be sometimes observed in the funerary inventories during the 4 th-3 rd centuries BC. When the social role of the craftsmen was perceived as important by the community, the descendants aimed to express that in a public manner, by placing tools specific to the respective craft in their grave. In other situations, the craftsmen's identity was ritually expressed through the votive offering of assemblages containing objects specific to their activity. Lastly, the presence of some traces of manufacturing activities in certain contexts can be related to the practising of magical rituals.
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The article presents description of materials from the mound cemetery Trinca-Drumul Fetestilor (NE of the Republic of Moldova). Nine out of twelve small stone-ground mounds were excavated. Two burial constructions are recorded: the burial construction situated on the ancient cultural level (the variant I.1, 83%), and the burial construction submerged in a pit (the variant I.2). The burial tradition may be regarded as bi-ceremonialism with cremation dominated (7-58%). Cenotaphs are also recorded (2-17%). Pottery and personal adornment objects combined with tools are the most frequently recorded objects in the explored burials. The Trinca cemetery functioned during three generations, from the mid 7th to the first quarter of 6th century BC. The comparative analysis of the implements under study with synchronous antiquities from Carpathian basin, South Carpathian Area, and North Black Sea forest-steppe land (Early Scythian culture), has revealed mostly the Hallstattian type of the Trinca cemetery and ethnically mixed type of individuals buried. The discovered male burials and the warrior burial (tumulus I) give reasons to assume miscegenation and a quite high degree of incorporation of Scythian nomads in the local environment. A high social rank burial of a woman (tumulus VI) is noticeable among the local type burials represented mostly by female burials. One can assume that weapons did not represent a high social status marker in the population of Trinca and Podolo-Moldavian group (7th-6th centuries BC). Apparently, women played an important social role in the local sedentary societies, since they were responsible for wealth accumulation and inheritance.
MATERIALE ŞI CERCETĂRI ARHEOLOGICE, (serie nouă), 2022
In early medieval societies, it is not only social differences that are expressed by the grave goods, but also genders. If we associate the 10 th century finds with gender, the general picture is that women were buried with jewellery and men with weapons. Beads are also typically a type of artefact that is mainly associated with female artefacts, although the male burials currently under discussion reflect the fact that there was no regularity by which they could not have been included in male graves. Thus, in the first part of this study, we will seek to answer the question of whether it is indeed possible to classify finds according to their recovery from male or female graves, or the situation is much more complex. According to our current data, only a small number of beaded male graves dated to the 10 th-11 th centuries were found in the Carpathian Basin: 36 graves from a total of 28 burial sites. Based on the beads found, men's graves are not characterized by the wearing of long strings of beads. In male burials, there are usually 1-3 beads and very rarely 4-5. Examining the beaded male graves of the Carpathian Basin, two chronological groups emerge: 1. Includes weapons-horse burials with richer grave goods. These may have been buried mainly in the first half of the 10 th century, but before the end of the 10 th century at the latest. 2. A group of beaded men with more modest grave goods, dating as early as the mid-or rather mid-late 10 th century. The S-ended ribbed lockring, found in Szegvár, suggests that the custom may have been practiced as late as the early 12 th century. But by this time, beads might have been placed in burials with far fewer, or even in the absence of other grave goods. Two trends emerge in the types of beads. One is that only monochrome beads are placed in graves. The other is when they just put beads with eye ornamentation in these graves. In contrast to other ornamental beads, eye beads may have been used in men's burials because they had a protective function, protecting the wearer from the evil eye. Given the wide distribution of the eye beads and their long period of use, it seems that the superstition of the evil eye was known among the conquering Hungarians.
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