Burial Customs

CHAPTER 3 Burial Customs The use of burial shrouds has been documented in near Benkovac, Dubravice and Donje Polje near Šibenik, Vinodol. Large stones, if available, were placed around Glavice near Sinj, Gomjenica near Prijedor, Petoševci, and the body of the deceased, and then the pit was filled in. Vinkovci. Where the cremated remains have been depos- Between the rivers Zrmanja, Neretva, and Trebišnjica, a ited in urns, those ceramic containers have nothing to somewhat different custom is documented, namely the do with the so-called Prague type believed to be typical building of a stone cist inside the pit. There seems to have for the earliest phase of the Slavic culture of the 5th to been no concern with adapting the shape of the cist to 7th centuries.1 In any case, none of the urns discovered that of the corpse, as evident from the use of elliptical, so far is entirely handmade, and most of them are not as non-anatomical cists. Although no burial mounds have badly fired, with a large opening, or with an “egg-shaped” been found on top of early medieval graves in Croatia, body that are so typical for the Prague type. Moroever, secondary burials within prehistoric barrows have been unlike urns from cremation graves in Croatia, the pottery documented at Materiza near Nin, Krneza, Konjsko above attributed to the so-called Prague type has no decoration Solin, in the Cetina Valley, and at Privlaka near Nin. whatsoever.2 Such pottery has been recently found in An important custom for burials of the first (or pagan) northeastern Slovakia and southeastern Hungary.3 By con- horizon is the deposition of one or two ceramic contain- trast, urns found in cremation graves in Croatia are most ers, usually placed by the feet or above the head. The ves- evidently thrown on a slowly turning wheel (tournette), sels may have contained a liquid substance, while solid and therefore have developed, S-shaped profiles and thin- food offerings were placed in wooden pails. Animal bones ner walls, and are better fired. Finally, unlike pots attrib- (of mammals or birds) and, sometimes, eggs, were also uted to the Prague type, the pottery from cremation graves placed besides the body. No evidence of ritual of break- in Croatia often displays so-called potter’s marks on the ing of pottery above the grave has been found. Personal bottom of the vessel. Such characteristics suggest a later effects, tools, and weapons were commonly placed in dating of the Croatian pottery, perhaps as late as the late the grave, such as swords, spears, knives and hatchets, 8th century and the first half of the 9th century. In other arrows, spurs, sickles. While weapons were often found in words, urn cremations may also belong to the first burial a “functional” position—as if carried on the body during horizon or the first material culture phase.4 Potter’s marks lifetime—most other objects appeared in positions differ- in Pannonia appear only after the mid-8th century,5 while ent from those in which they would have been in relation the combed decoration appears mostly on 8th-century to a living body. Graves of high-ranking individuals may pottery.6 This is also true for the pottery of the so-called have also included glass bottles and beakers (often next to Luka-Raikoveckaia culture in western Ukraine.7 The urn the shoulders) or antler containers richly decorated with cremations recently found in the Zala county of western scenes of animals wearing horned masks on either side Hungary have also been dated to the first half of the 9th of a tree of life (normally found at waist or head level). century.8 The same dating has been advanced for the pot- Equally significant for marking social and military status tery from inhumation graves found in the same area.9 seem to be jingle bells attached to the stitching of the left Three sites with cremations are so far known from boot at the knee, often in combination with spurs. Aside northern Croatia and the neighboring region in Serbia: from jewelry, female graves also contained spindle whorls, needle-holders made of bone, combs and small knives. Children’s graves also produced ceramic goods, as well as 1 Fusek 1994, 142. rings, torcs and necklaces. 2 Rusanova 1976, 20–44; Pleterski 1990, 65. The regular, north-south orientation of grave rows 3 Guštin-Tiefengraber 2002, 61–62; Sós–Salamon 1995, 94. strongly suggests that graves of the first burial horizon 4 J. Korošec 1952b, pic. 83; Z. Vinski 1987, 200. 5 Béreš 1995, 149–150. were marked in some way, either by signs of a perishable 6 Budinski-Krička 1990, 89; Pleterski 2001, 407. material (wood) or with small mounds that were later flat- 7 Rusanova–Timoščuk 1981, 26, 35, 59–68; Rusanova–Timoščuk tened. Although the vast majority of the graves in cem- 1984, 43. eteries of the first horizon are inhumations, a number 8 Vándor etc. 1992, 4, 7; Szőke 1995, 4, 12, 14; Szőke 1996, t. 28–29. of cremations have recently been found in Kašić, Velim 9 Szőke-Vándor 1992; Müller 1992a; Szőke 1996. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi ��.��63/9789004306745_0�� 130 Interpretation and General Remarks – 3 Belišće (dated to the late 7th or early 8th century),10 uted between the inhumations, which have also produced Vinkovci (dated to the first half of the 8th century, pos- pottery thrown on a tournette with combed decoration sibly also to the second half of the same century),11 and and “potter’s marks.” A croissant-shaped pendant found Novi Slankamen (dated to the late 8th century).12 All urns in Velim and dated to the late 8th and the early the 9th found on those sites are thrown on a tournette and display century, as well as wire earring, with three interlaced pen- combed decoration. The urns from Slankamen are very dants from three separate graves (two of them with pot- similar to those from Pókaszepetk13 and Kašić.14 Equally tery) point to a 9th-century date for that cemetery, a date similar is the pot from grave 62 in Nin–Ždrijac,15 which which also covers the cremation burials. Biritual cemeter- produced a coin struck for Lothar. ies cannot therefore be dated before the late 8th century.24 A conspicuous feature of pots thrown on a tournette A question arises at this point. If the pottery found in found in Croatian cemeteries is the concave protrusion on cremation graves may be dated to the 9th century, much the bottom. Such pots appear also in the regions between like the very similar pottery found with inhumations, then the Danube, Bohemia, Silesia, and the basin of the Upper where is the earlier, so-called Prague-type pottery associ- Vistula.16 The “pitted pottery,” as this ceramic category ated with the arrival of the Slavs in the 7th century? If, as came to be known among archaeologists, is believed to the common opinion has it, the Croats came to Croatia have originated in Silesia17 and to have spread throughout in the 7th century, they must have used non-ceramic con- the Carpathian Basin during the 8th century.18 It has been tainers or pots unlike any other in the rest of the Slavic rightly noted that the concave protrusion is a sign that world. At the turn of the 8th century and in the 9th cen- the pottery in question was produced on a slowly turning tury, however, they appear to have suddenly decided to get wheel (a tournette); almost all authors agree that it the in line with everybody else in terms of pottery. Needless to result of a technology implying to use of a turntable onto say, such a scenario has absolutely no parallel in Central which the clay lump was affixed in order to be modelled Europe or in the Balkans (Serbia, Macedonia, or Bulgaria). into a pot. Moreover, there seems to be no doubt that pottery like A number of cremation graves were discovered at that found with cremations in Croatia appears in ninth- Glavice near Sinj, but without urns or any other grave century assemblages outside Croatia, for example in goods.19 They were found in shallow pits between inhu- Pitten and Alsórajk. Nor can urns with 9th-century cremation burials,20 and have consequently been dated to mations found in the Alpine region and in Pannonia be the 7th century.21 However, biritual cemeteries with urns compared to the pottery found in Croatia and believed to in shallow grave pits distributed among inhumations are be of a 7th-century date. To be sure, the so-called Prague- known only from the first half of the 9th century.22 The type pottery has indeed been discovered in the region of 2004 excavations of the Velim cemetery near Benkovac Pannonia now in northeastern Slovenia and southwestern produced 118 graves, 16 of which were cremation burials.23 Hungary in assemblages securely dated earlier, i.e. to the As in Alsórajk (Hungary), the cremations were distrib- 7th century. No such assemblages are so far known from Littoral Croatia.25 10 Filipec 2008. The conversion to Christianity brought about radical 11 Sekelj Ivančan–Tkalčec 2006, 198–199. changes in burial customs. New cemeteries were opened 12 Janković 2003, 98–100. at new locations, but old sites were neither changed nor 13 Sós-Salamon 1995. devastated. At the new sites, the deposition of pottery or 14 Belošević 1972. 15 Belošević 2007, t. XCVII. food offerings is completely absent, and no weapons were 16 Sokol 2008c.

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