Map 1. Eleventh-century churches, churchyards and monasteries (with late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

Map 2a. The monastic network before the Mongol Invasion, 1241 (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

Map 2b. The monastic network around 1300 (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

Map 2c. The monastic network around 1500 (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

Map 3. Parishes in the Kingdom of Hungary, 1332–1337. (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

Map 4. Monastic estates donated before 1100 (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányii

Map 5. Priests, churches and mosques mentioned between 1550 and 1620 (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

Millennial Record of Earthquakes in the Carpathian-Pannonian Region: Historical and Archaeoseismology

Miklós Kázmér and Erzsébet Győri
Eötvös Loránd University, MTA–ELTE Geological, Geophysical and Space Science Research Group; Kövesligethy Radó Seismological Observatory
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Hungarian Historical Review Volume 9 Issue 2  (2020): 284-301 DOI:10.38145/2020.2.284

This is a short essay on earthquakes in the Carpathian-Pannonian region and its surroundings. Earthquakes have been recorded using seismographs since 1902 in Hungary. The relatively small number of seismic events and the long return period of major earthquakes make it necessary to use historical data in order to assess seismic hazard. Historical earthquake catalogues aim for exhaustiveness both in time and space, but they are limited by the lack of documentary data. A simple arithmetical assessment is provided to estimate our lack of knowledge of past seismic events. All destructive earthquakes of the twentieth century (above magnitude 5) are included in the catalogue (100%). Of the seismic events which took place in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, only 23% are on record, while this figure drops to 4.6 percent for the eleventh–sixteenth centuries and 0.2 percent for the first millennium AD. On average, we have no information about 90% of the destructive earthquakes which occurred in the Carpathian-Pannonian region over the course of the past two millennia.
According to both instrumental measurements and historical sources, there were relatively few earthquakes in the central era of the period of time in question. This era coincides roughly with the two centuries of Ottoman rule (the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). Were there really few earthquakes over the course of these two centuries, or we do not have the relevant records? We contend that warfare resulted in the destruction of settlements and the annihilation of documents.
Fragile historical documents can be supplemented by the study of robust edifices, an approach to the study of the past which is known as archaeoseismology. Evidence of damage and destruction can be identified, and earthquake parameters can be assessed. One can find evidence corroborating other sources indicating an earthquake (e.g. Savaria), and one can also identify traces of previously unknown seismic events (Visegrád). One can also assign intensity values to the existing historical records. Damage observed to a Roman road in Savaria, to the medieval donjon of Nagyvázsony offers support for our fundamental contention. In order to understand the seismic hazard that was faced in the Carpathian-Pannonian region, renewed study of historical sources and new archaeoseismological investigations are needed.

Keywords: earthquakes, archaeoseismology, historical sources, Carpathian-Pannonian region

Introduction

Earthquakes cannot be predicted. There are abundant references on the internet and in the secondary literature concerning seismic events that allegedly were successfully forecast. Several natural anomalies were harbingers of the 1975 Haicheng event in China, and an evacuation order was issued by an exceptionally cautious civil protection leader, who was in a position of power at the time and who thus probably saved tens of thousands of lives. In contrast, there was no foreshock or any other kind of anomaly on the basis of which predictions might have been made concerning the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which hit the city at night and caused at least 250,000 deaths. The few successful cases when an earthquake was predicted should be seen as lucky coincidences at most, not suitable for generalization.1 How can we reduce damage to people and property by earthquakes in the future? Anything that happened in the past can happen in the future. We therefore need to learn as much as we can about the past. This may help us prepare for events in the future.2 In the following, we provide a very short overview on the seismic history of the Carpathians and the Pannonian Basin.

Historical Seismology

Measurements of seismic activity using sophisticated instruments began in Hungary in 1902. For any moment before this date, we have data on seismicity based on historical documents only. Grossinger3 was the first to summarize these documents in a Latin catalogue published in 1783, immediately followed by a German translation of Sternberg,4 both of whom listed 150 events. A century later, Jeitteles5 described 220 earthquakes from the same period in great detail, noting felt features and damage. After a few short communications, Réthly6 published his monumental catalogue, listing events up to the end of 1917. Two hundred and thirty-five of these events are recorded from the same period as Grossinger. Réthly was the first to distinguish between main shock and aftershocks. He gave catalogue entries in the original language and added Hungarian translations with references to the original sources. His catalogue is an exemplary work in every sense.7

Zsíros8 prepared a computerized catalogue containing more than 20,000 events. Most of the information concerning these events came from instrumental measurements taken after 1970. Comparing his methods with previous studies, we found that he increased the data given by Grossinger more than fourfold (!) for the period which came to an end in 1783. References are provided for all of the data. This catalogue has been supplemented by new data compiled using instruments by researchers at the Seismological Observatory in Budapest. Figures 1 and 2, which illustrate the temporal and spatial distribution of earthquakes in the Carpathian-Pannonian Basin, are based on this database.

Historical earthquake catalogues are prepared with the intent of making a complete listing of known events for a given area. The best examples to follow are the catalogues compiled by Guidoboni and Comastri9 for the Mediterranean region, by Ambraseys10 for the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and, to cite a local example, by Hammerl and Lenhardt11 for Lower Austria.

Our ability to provide a complete account of catalogue of seismic events, however, depends, of course, on the availability of sources. Hungary is characterized by a lack rather than an abundance of sources, in part because of its stormy history.

Earthquakes of magnitude 5 or larger are plotted by decade in Figure 1. A magnitude 5 earthquake causes structural damage to buildings. Earthquakes and seismic events which took place after 1901 were measured using new instruments, so these measurements were used to plot them on the graph, while other sources, including narrative sources, were used to plot seismic events before this. The part of the graph which covers earthquakes of a magnitude of five or more in the twentieth century can be considered complete, as it is based on data provided by relatively sophisticated instruments. The graph offers the impression that, the further one goes back in time, the fewer earthquakes there were. Clearly, this is unlikely. This difference is a sign, rather, of the lack of sources.

Figure 1. Number of known earthquakes in the Carpathian-Pannonian region and surroundings in the past two millennia. Magnitude 5 and larger events are shown for each decade. See also Figure 2 for the investigated area.12

We assume that there were similar numbers of earthquakes in previous centuries. The locations and times of seismic activities are consequences of processes of plate tectonics, which hardly show significant variations over the course of centuries or even millennia.13 On average, there were 15 events every decade in the twentieth century, coming to a total of 205 earthquakes. The approximate parameters of these events are known. Between 1600 and 1900, sources indicate that there were on average five events per decade, coming to a total of 144 earthquakes, instead of the 615 ones if we assume that earthquakes occurred with the same frequency as in the twentieth century. This means that there are no records in the available sources of three fourths of the destructive earthquakes (which would mean 461 events). There are scattered records of earthquakes before 1600, including decades for which there are no indications that there were any earthquakes whatsoever. Between 1000 and 1600, the sources indicate only 57 earthquakes, which would be 4.6% of the 1,230 quakes which probably occurred. There are only three records of three earthquakes from the first millennium. In other words, if one were to rely entirely on these sources, one would conclude that 0.2% of all the earthquakes which occurred in the period of time covered in this discussion took place over the course of this period of 1,000 years (Fig. 1). If, in contrast, we were to make the logical assumption that earthquakes were as common in the first millennium as they were in the twentieth century, we can conclude that the sources make no mention of 99.8% of all earthquakes. Historical observations for 1 to 1900 AD indicate only 5.2 percent of the number of earthquakes which we can assume to have taken place. These are the earthquakes that are listed in the aforementioned catalogues. Calculations of seismic risks are based on these data, as are the hazard maps (Table 1).

Table 1. Known earthquakes and earthquakes assumed to have taken place in the Carpathian-Pannonian region and surroundings. For the area studied see Figure 2.

There are various mathematical methods available to assess the seismicity of any region, be it as large14 or small.15 The simple arithmetic used in the present study is intended to reveal major gaps in our knowledge and emphasize the importance of further study.

Why do we know so little about past earthquakes of the period before sophisticated instruments were available to detect and measure seismic activity? There are three major factors to be considered. (1) Were any records of earthquakes created at all? (2) Were the records preserved? (3) If a source was created, do we know of it, have we analyzed it, and was it included in the earthquake catalogue?

There are more than 4,000 Roman inscriptions in Pannonia dating to the period between the first and the fifth centuries AD.16 Most of them were unavailable to Réthly. Roman inscriptions rarely mention earthquakes. Rather, they note completion of construction or reconstruction of a building. Thorough historical and archaeological study of the sites is necessary if we wish to interpret these inscriptions accurately. People of the Early Middle Ages rarely left any written records in the region. Late medieval sources, especially sources found in the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary, are substantial, and many of them have either been published in print or are available online. There are about half a million medieval charters of a legal nature. They do not provide much information concerning seismicity. Travelogues, reports by envoys, and geographical and historical handbooks17 probably provide the most substantial amount of data, if one approaches them with an open mind. Private correspondence, frequent from the sixteenth century onwards, and reports published in foreign journals beginning in the seventeeth century provide a considerable amount of data. It is too easy to rely on the monumental catalogue compiled by Réthly and his successors. One must be aware that his data were gathered up until the late 1910s, and later amendments and additions were made.

Zsíros,18 who was aware of this deficiency, found a significant number of new sources and added the data he found in them to his catalogue. Additionally, he added geographic coordinates to the sites, assigning intensity and magnitude values to seismic events. His sources are precisely referenced. However, word-by-word citations and especially translations on this scale constitute a task beyond the capabilities of one person. The extent and precision of Zsíros’s work is shown by the fact that he identified three times the number of earthquakes (460) identified by Réthly, making note of 1,453 events during the period covered by Grossinger until 1783.

If there were historical records produced, did they survive tumultuous centuries of history in the Carpathian-Pannonian region? Figure 2 shows the maximum extent of Ottoman rule in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This meant severe destruction of life and property due to incessant warfare and robbery. This part of the region also seems to be characterized by a low number of earthquakes (Fig. 2), while there were significantly more to the west and east. Recurring warfare in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries resulted in the destruction of towns and cultural centers (especially monasteries) and depopulation in general. One third of medieval churches of Pest County are known from archaeological evidence only, because the relevant historical documents were lost.19 Written records were neither produced nor preserved during this period. No Gothic buildings, ecclesiastic or secular, survived in Buda, which was the medieval capital and royal seat of Hungary. The royal archives and library, the city archives, the royal registries and charters, records of city councils, financial records, and private correspondence were all lost due to the wars with the Ottomans.20 Particularly painful is the loss of historia domus records, which were dutifully written and preserved by monks in each monastery. These were major sources of Réthly’s studies in other regions. Turkish-language records, written in the Arabic alphabet, are certainly available, waiting to be studied.

When creating Figure 2, we asked whether the Carpathian-Pannonian region was really relatively free of major destructive earthquakes in its center or not. Is it true that there were many major earthquakes in the west and the east but almost none in the center? We cannot offer an answer based on the small number of surviving historical records. Given the methods on which it is based, archaeoseismology may yield a more nuanced understanding of seismic activity in the Carpathian-Pannonian region, and it may well provide significant quantities of new data, irrespective of the historical record. Two examples illustrate this point below.

Archaeoseismology

Archaeoseismology is the study of seismic activity in the past on the basis of archeological sites. It has not yet been used in Hungary. An archaeoseismologist studies archeological excavations and surviving edifices for deformations caused by earthquakes.21 If one can exclude other causes (foundation problems, damages caused by warfare, etc.),22 earthquake intensity is assessed, and attempts are made to establish, within a limited framework, the time of earthquake. The nature of the damage helps localize the fault responsible for the shocks(s). This method is a suitable approach to finding corroborating evidence of suspected historical earthquakes (e.g. Savaria)23 and identifying seismic events unrecorded in historical sources (Visegrád).24 Additionally, one can assign intensity values to earthquakes, independently from historical records (Buda,25 Kolozsvár26).

Archaeoseismology was essentially invented in Greece as way of explaining layers of collapsed edifices excavated in the palace of Knossos, Crete.27 The first handbook was published in Athens.28 Large-scale field surveys29 were followed by clear essays on methodology in Italy30 and Spain.31 Progress is being made in attempts to produce analogue models first and foremost in Portugal,32 and Germany is in the vanguard in computer analysis.33 There are examples of widespread use of archaeoseismology in Turkey34 and Israel35 and novel studies elsewhere in the Mediterranean region, including Algeria,36 Tunisia,37 Libya,38 Egypt,39 Jordan,40 Lebanon,41 and Syria,42 to name a few.

The Mediterranean region lies along the collision zone between the European and the African plates, in a so-called plate margin environment, where seismicity is high. Additionally, there are rare but major earthquakes in intraplate environments, far from any plate margin. Archaeoseismology is eminently suitable as an approach to the study of past earthquakes in this region. However, the findings are often met by skepticism. The Lower Rhine Graben, centered around Cologne, was recently identified as possibly the seismically most active region of intraplate Europe, as proven by two millennia of archaeological documentation of past earthquakes.43 In the Carpathian-Pannonian region, Manfred Kandler, an Austrian archaeologist, was the first to suggest that collapsed walls in the Roman city of Carnuntum near Vienna were destroyed by an earthquake or earthquakes. His ideas were initially rejected, and this prompted him to publish his findings in Hungary.44 As other studies began to be published supporting45 and throwing into question his contentions,46 his views gained some acceptance. Recently, an international conference was organized dedicated to the Carnuntum earthquake of the 4th century AD.47

There are a few promising initiatives elsewhere in the Carpathian-Pannonian region. A large portion of the Roman city wall in Siscia (modern Sisak in Croatia) lies, collapsed, several meters from the foundation.48 Damage observed to St. Michael’s Church in Cluj-Napoca (in Transylvania, Romania) indicates an earthquake of intensity IX, far larger than anything suspected before.49 Major subsidence in the floor of the Franciscan monastery at Visegrád indicates that there was a major earthquake, causing liquefaction, at some point between 1513 and 1540. Both the monastery and the adjacent church were ruined.50 Using numerical techniques to model the process of deformation and damage, we arrive at data on the energy released,51 and we can draw conclusions as to whether the damage was caused by a sudden, seismic shock or continuous loading.52

Preliminary information is given on two sites to show that archaeoseismological research is possible and desirable in Hungary. A Roman road in Savaria (modern Szombathely) shows asymmetric subsidence which may be attributable to seismic activity (Fig. 3): a person or a horse-drawn cart could not move or stand on the 1.5-meter wide tilted edge of the road. This kind of deformation seems a prime example of uneven subsidence caused by seismic-generated liquefaction. A minor trench or a hand boring might reveal sandy subsoil to corroborate the presence of liquefiable sand. Stairs of the spiral staircase from the fifteenth-century donjon in Nagyvázsony were displaced by roughly 4 cm, obviously caused by lateral loading, possibly due to an earthquake (Fig. 4).

Historical seismology is like a large-resolution snapshot: a single event is documented in great detail. An earthquake which took place in 1202 AD in the Middle East, which was the largest earthquake known to have taken place there, offers an example of a dramatic seismic event which has been thoroughly studied. It was recorded at more than hundred sites within a circle with a radius of 500 km.53 Later, the fault responsible was identified in Mount Lebanon.54 The more snapshots we have, the more accurate our hazard assessment.

Archaeoseismology is like a deep borehole: a single site might record successive construction-destruction-reconstruction events over the course of centuries. Although recurrent episodes of damage to the same edifice are not easy to recognize and date, a few promising results are available. For instance, the crusader fortress of Al-Marqab on the coast of Syria,55 the Roman theater in Capitolias (modern Beit-Ras in Jordan),56 and the Byzantine dead city of Umm al-Jimal (also in Jordan) each offer evidence of at least two successive seismic events. While dating is still ambiguous at the Jordanian sites, we find evidence for reconstruction after the first earthquake and abandonment after the second event. Usually, historical sources and archaeoseismology work hand-in-hand, especially when dating is considered.

Summary

Earthquake hazard can be reliably assessed only if we are aware of past seismicity. The relatively small number of seismic events and long return period of major earthquakes make it necessary to use historical data in seismic hazard assessment. However, the lack of documentary data in the central region of the Carpathian-Pannonian region makes this a challenging task. This area practically coincides with the maximum extent of two centuries of Ottoman rule in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An arithmetic assessment suggests that we have no record of 90 percent of the destructive earthquakes which, in all likelihood, occurred in the Carpathian-Pannonian region over the course of the past two millennia.

We suggest that, by using archaeoseismology, we can contribute previously unknown data to this discussion. Damage caused by earthquakes can be recognized, and earthquake parameters can be assessed. Preliminary studies identified previously unknown seismic events (Visegrád) and assigned intensity values to historical records. The damage observed on a Roman road in Savaria and in the medieval donjon of Nagyvázsony offer two examples of the potentials of archaeoseismology. Renewed extensive study of historical sources and the further use of archaeoseismological investigation are needed if we seek to arrive at a nuanced understanding of seismic hazard in the Carpathian-Pannonian region.

Acknowledgements

András Grynaeus called our attention to earthquake damage in the donjon at Nagyvázsony. Two anonymous referees suggested useful improvements. Thomas Cooper improved English. We are also grateful for their assistance.

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Transformations of Metal Supply during the Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin

Viktória Kiss*
Research Centre for the Humanities
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 Hungarian Historical Review Volume 9 Issue 2  (2020): 315-330 DOI:10.38145/2020.2.315

This paper presents recent research questions which have been raised and methods which have been used in the study of Bronze Age metallurgy in connection with available natural resources (ores) in and around the Carpathian Basin. This topic fits in the most current trends in the research on European prehistoric archaeology. Given the lack of written sources, copper and bronze artifacts discovered in settlement and cemetery excavations and prehistoric mining sites provide the primary sources on which the studies in question are based. The aim of compositional and isotope analysis of copper and tin ores, metal tools, ornaments, and weapons is to determine the provenience of the raw materials and further an understanding of the chaine operatiore of prehistoric metal production. The Momentum Mobility Research Group of the Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities studies these metal artifacts using archaeological and scientific methods. It has focused on the first thousand years of the Bronze Age (2500–1500 BC). Multidisciplinary research include non-destructive XRF, PGAA (promptgamma activation), TOF-ND (time-of-flight neutron diffraction) analyses and neutron radiography, as well as destructive methods, e.g. metal sampling for compositional and lead isotope testing, alongside archaeological analysis. Microstructure studies are also efficient methods for determining the raw material and production techniques. The results suggest the use of regional ore sources and interregional connections, as well as several transformations in the exchange network of the prehistoric communities living in the Carpathian Basin.

Keywords: Copper Age, Bronze Age, metallurgy, scientific analysis, exchange networks

Introduction

Given the lack of written sources from the period in question, an important research question is simply where did the raw materials, used by prehistoric communities come from. If we determine the provenance of stone and metal raw materials, we can venture hypotheses regarding the connections among prehistoric groups. Over the course of the past decade, montan-archeological research (Montanarchäologie; archeology of raw material mining) and archeometallurgy have proven the existence of several prehistoric copper ore mining sites in various European regions. As a result, most current research trends in the archaeological study of the Copper and Bronze Ages are connected to scientific analyses of metal artifacts discovered in settlement and cemetery excavations, as well as ores found at prehistoric mining sites.1

Figure 1. Map of social interactions based on the archaeometallurgical analyses of the first copper artifacts in the Carpathian Basin2

In the central areas of the Carpathian Basin metal, ores were not available, or in a very small amount.3 Compositional analysis of the first small items of copper jewelry, which appeared in the late Neolithic period (the fifth millennium BC), revealed that they were made of high-purity copper. Thanks to recent lead isotope analyses, the conclusion has been reached that these artifacts came to the Carpathian Basin from communities living in the vicinity of mines in Serbia and Bulgaria (Fig. 1).4 The very few lead isotope data so far indicate that they are objects that were imported from the Balkans even in the Copper Age, possibly with the use of mines in the Slovak Ore Mountains and the eastern Alpine region.5 We can suppose that the development of local metallurgy began in the Copper Age.6

Analysis of Bronze Age Artifacts in Central Europe

The metalwork of the Bell Beaker culture (around 2500 BC), which began to emerge at the dawn of the European Bronze Age, is an important research topic, mainly because artifacts used by these communities were the first metal objects in the western part of Europe. On the basis of the available data, scholars outlined a uniform metal type, the so-called Bell Beaker metal, which consisted of 98% copper with arsenic, antimony, and nickel impurities.7 A selection of 1,943 trace element analyses of copper finds from the material of Central European communities (southern and central Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, and the Carpathian Basin) used between 4500 and 2000 BC resulted in a picture which differed from the western European Bell Beaker metal: the artifacts were categorized into 13 different groups. According to the compositional analyses, 65 of the 80 eastern Bell Beaker objects were made of tin-rich or fahlore coppers with varying impurities (antimony, arsenic, silver) and a small (less than 4%) amount of tin. The various dominant elements suggest that there was no uniform Bell Beaker metal in this region.8

Elemental composition data of the next period prove that the most widespread raw material of the Central European Early Bronze Age (from 2100 BC; contemporaneous with the 3rd phase of the Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age in Hungary)9 was the so-called Ösenring metal, the characteristic fahlore type of the neck rings.10 The latter copper, which contained silver, arsenic, and antimony impurities, has been associated with ore occurrences in the triangle of the Eastern Alps, Slovakia, and the Czech-Saxon Ore Mountain range based on the distribution area of the mentioned neck rings (Fig. 2).11 Lead isotope tests which were used to arrive at more accurate determinations of provenance indicate that the raw material of these artifacts derived from the Slovak region.12

Figure 2. Prehistoric copper mining regions associated with Ösenring metal type13

Figure 3. Abundance of copper with fahlore and chalcopyrite signatures produced
in the eastern Alps from the beginning of the Bronze Age to the Hallstatt period based
on the compositions of approximately 1200 prehistoric metal artifacts from Tyrol, Salzburg, and southern Bavaria14

In the 1960s and 1970s, the transformation of the raw material used at the beginning of the Central European Middle Bronze Age (contemporaneously with the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age in Hungary) was detected by the Stuttgart metallurgy project (Studien zu den Anfängen der Metallurgie or SAM project).15 This metal type, which contained arsenic and nickel, spread in a wide region of Europe, also called Einheitskupfer or eastern Alpine copper. The new unified metal type, based on lead isotope data, was associated with chalcopyrite ores (Fig. 3) of the Mitterberg region, situating to the south of Salzburg.16 According to the most recent radiocarbon dates, these ore sources were exploited from the 16th to the 14th centuries BC.17

Analysis of Bronze Age Artifacts in Hungary: State-of-the Art and New Perspectives

As we have seen, research on Eurasian copper raw material has provided important data, although questions still remain regarding the origin of copper ores used by Bronze Age metalworkers in the Carpathian Basin.

Research on metal finds has intensified over the course of the past two decades in Hungary as well. Re-dating of the earliest axes from the 3rd millennium to the end of the 4th millennium provided important data concerning raw materials. Based on an evaluation of the Stuttgart database, 21 axes of the Bányabükk hoard prove that Copper Age and the earliest Bronze Age axes were made of pure copper. The raw material of later Fajsz-, Corbasca-, and Kömlőd-Kozarac-type axes18 show a more varied picture, with fahlores containing impurities at 1–2%, namely arsenic, antimony, and silver. Occasional low nickel content suggests a mixture of ores.19 This indicates that the raw materials the natural impurities of which made it possible to produce harder tools were sought and were not the result of intentional alloying.20

Analyses of metal finds from Bell Beaker burials (2500–2200 BC) were also begun. According to the findings, the raw materials out of which the daggers and pins were made usually consisted of pure copper (98–99%) with antimony, silver, lead, and tin impurities.21

Based on several metal analyses, neck rings, hair rings, spiral arm rings, pins, and daggers from the end of the Early Bronze Age (Fig. 4) which were excavated in western Hungary (2100–1900 BC)22 were manufactured from fahlore copper rich in trace elements, such as antimony, arsenic, and silver.23 Copper artifacts containing arsenic and nickel, beside fahlore copper ornaments and tools are known from cemeteries of the same period which were discovered in eastern Hungary.24

Figure 4. Typochronology of metal finds from the dawn of the Early Bronze Age until the first period of the Middle Bronze Age in Hungary25

At the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (2000/1900 BC), tin bronzes appeared with 4–10% tin, which is a clear indication of intentional alloying
(Fig. 5).26

Optical emission spectroscopy analyses of the aforementioned Stuttgart metallurgical project provided 116 data for Middle Bronze Age metallurgy of Western Hungary based on samplings of five hoards of Transdanubian Encrusted Pottery (1800–1600 BC; the so-called Tolnanémedi horizon) and artifacts of a burial from the same period. The findings indicate that 80% of the local ornament types were made of the characteristic fahlore type Ösenring copper alloyed with tin.27 Compositional analyses of the Zalaszabar hoard from the same period suggest that tools and jewelry, which were found together in hoards, were manufactured with the use of several casting procedures.28

Testing of the Koszider type hoards and several ornaments and tools from the end of the Middle Bronze Age in Hungary demonstrates a transformation in the use of raw materials similar to contemporaneous Central European Middle Bronze Age, with the dominance of so-called Einheitskupfer or containing arsenic and nickel.29 In connection with the research on the find assemblage of the famous Nebra Sky Disc, dating to the 16th and 15th centuries BC and discovered in the region of Halle (northeastern Germany), elemental analyses of the axes of the Hajdúsamson hoard, axes and a sword from Vámospércs and Téglás were performed. As in the case of the material of the Nebra finds, the compositional data all match the mentioned eastern Alpine copper (with two exceptions from Téglás). This research yielded the first lead isotope data from Hungary confirming the association of the mentioned raw material with the chalcopyrite ore mines of the eastern Alpine region. Investigations of the Apa hoard, which has close typological relations to the weapons from Hajdúsámson, and other contemporaneous find assemblages suggest that, in addition to Alpine and Slovak raw materials, ores from other regions of the Carpathians (in the area of Baia Mare and the Apuşeni Mountains) were also processed (Fig. 6).30

Figure 6. Lead isotope ratios of the objects from Apa and Hajdúsámson and of copper ores from Mitterberg, the Slovak Ore Mountains and lead ores from Baia Mare31

We have seen that data concerning elemental compositions suggest large trends, but the exact provenance of raw materials and the chaine operatiore of production need further confirmation.

The project of the Momentum Mobility Research Group of the Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities aims to study metal artifacts of the abovementioned period during the first thousand years of the Bronze Age in Hungary (2500–1500 BC). We analyzed ornaments, weapons, and tools from precisely dated inhumation and cremation burial assemblages of the Bell Beaker period (2500–2200 BC) and the Early and the Middle Bronze Ages in eastern and western Hungary (Fig. 7–8).

Multidisciplinary analyses of chemical composition are provided by non-destructive XRF, PGAA (prompt-gamma activation), and TOF-ND (time-of-flight neutron diffraction) analyses in cooperation with the Budapest Neutron Centre (Centre for Energy Research). XRF results can only be interpreted for the surface, while bulk area was analyzed by PGAA.32 Neutron radiography and TOF-ND are

33 

applied in order to determine production techniques (see summary of research facilities and relevant technologies available for the archaeometallurgical testing in Hungary).34 It is important to note that while post-casting elaboration was formerly identifed by destructive microstructure analysis we could detect the hardening of the edge of flanged axes without any destruction of the artefacts (Fig. 8).35

Figure 9. Dendritic structure of an as-cast pendant from Zalaszabar36

We perform destructive metallographic examinations on some objects, selected on the basis of non-destructive analyzes, in cooperation with the specialists of the Department of Materials Science of the University of Miskolc and the Department of Solid State Physics of the University of Debrecen (Fig. 9). We also study the effect of cremation to the microstructure of the bronze jewelry found in cremation burials.37

Figure 10. Multidisciplinary analyses of Bronze Age finds from Hungarian Early and Middle Bronze Age sites (Balatonakali, Budakalász, Nagyrév, Polgár, Sárrétudvari, Zalaszabar, Zsennye) with Central European prehistoric copper mining sites38

There are 42 ongoing lead isotope measurements (Fig. 10) performed in collaboration with the Curt-Engelhorn Archaeometry Center in Mannheim. The significance of these lead isotope analyses is emphasized by the fact that, with the exception of the above mentioned nine objects from the region of Debrecen, no additional lead isotope data were available from the inner areas of the Carpathian Basin.

Our results complement the research performed in the 1960s and 1970s and over the course of the past two decades. Changes in raw material use over time show similar tendencies to those in Austria and other parts of Central Europe. Though compositional data are still matter of discussion,39 results suggest that, in the Early Bronze Age, copper ores which were mined in the territory of present-day Slovakia were used.40 Based on some artifact types dating between 2800 and 1500 BC we can suppose networks of relationships which stretched over long distances. In the case of these artifacts, the question has arisen as to whether they were manufactured at and exported from the same workshop or they are locally made copies that indicate long-distance connections among Bronze Age communities.41 E.g. lead isotope data concerning the weapons from the Hajdúsámson treasure and other swords and axes found near Debrecen suggest that the raw materials with which they were made originated from the Eastern Alpine region. The decoration motifs on these weapons, however, indicate that they were made locally in the Tisza region.42 The findings summarized here indicate interregional connections, as well as several transformations in the exchange network of the prehistoric communities living in the Carpathian Basin.

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Mithay, Sándor. Bronzkori kultúrák Győr környékén. Győr: Győr szab. kir. város közönsége, 1942.

Needham, Stuart. “Analytical implications for Beaker metallurgy in north-west Europe.” In Die Anfänge der Metallurgie in der Alten Welt, edited by Martin Bartelheim, Ernst Pernicka, and Rüdiger Krause, 99–133. Rahden Westfalen: Marie Leidorf, 2002.

Needham, Stuart. “Copper dagger and knives.” In The Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen: Bell Beaker burials at Boscombe Down, Amesbury, Wiltshire. Excavations at Boscombe Down. Vol. 1, edited by Andrew Fitzpatrick, 120–27. Wessex Archaeology Report 27. Salisbury: Wessex Archaeology, 2011.

Pernicka, Ernst. “Analyses of Early Bronze Age metal objects from the Museum in Debrecen, Hungary.” Gesta 12 (2013): 48–55.

Pernicka, Ernst, Bianca Nessel, and Mathias Mehofer. “Lead Isotope Analyses of Metal Objects from the Apa Hoard and Other Early and Middle Bronze Age Items from Romania.” Archaeologica Austriaca 100 (2016): 57–86.

Pernicka, Ernst, Joachim Lutz, and Thomas Stöllner. “Bronze Age Copper Produced at Mitterberg, Austria, and its Distribution.” Archaeologia Austriaca 100 (2016): 19–55.

Radivojević, Mirjana, Ben W. Roberts, Ernst Pernicka, Zofia Stos-Gale, Marcos Martinón-Torres, Thilo Rehren, Peter Bray et al. “The Provenance, Use, and Circulation of Metals in the European Bronze Age: The State of Debate.” Journal of Archaeological Research 27 (2019): 131–85. doi:10.1007/s10814-018-9123-9.

Shalev, Sariel, Tibor Kovács, and Katalin T. Biró. “Investigation of early copper-based alloys from the collection of the Hungarian National Museum. Korai rézötvözetek vizsgálata a Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum gyűjteményéből.” Archeometriai Műhely 9 (2012): 105–16.

Schreiner, Marcus. Erzlagerstätten im Hrontal, Slowakei: Genese und prähistorische Nutzung. Forschungen zur Archäometrie und Altertumswissenschaft 3. Rahden–Westfalen: Marie Leidorf, 2007.

Schubert, Franz, and Eckehart Schubert. “Spektralanalytische Untersuchungen von Hort und Einzelfunden der Periode B III.” In Bronzefunde des Karpatenbeckens: Depotfundhorizonte von Hajdúsámson und Kosziderpadlás, edited by Amália Mozsolics, 185–89. Budapest: Akadémia Kiadó, 1967.

Siklósi, Zsuzsanna, Mihael Prange, Nándor Kalicz, and Pál Raczky. “New Data on the Provenance of Early Copper Finds from the Great Hungarian Plain.” In Neolithic and Copper Age between the Carpathians and the Aegean Sea: Chronologies and Technologies from the 6th to the 4th Millennium BCE. International Workshop Budapest 2012, edited by Svend Hansen, Pál Raczky, Alexandra Anders, and Agathe Reingruber, 57–92. Archäologie in Eurasien 31. Bonn: Habelt, 2015.

Siklósi, Zsuzsanna, Zsuzsanna M. Virág, Viktória Mozgai, and Bernadett Bajnóczi. “The spread of the products and technology of metallurgy in the Carpathian Basin between 5000 and 3000 BC: Current questions.” Dissertationes Archaeologicae, 3d ser., no. 5 (2017): 67–82. doi: 10.17204/dissarch.2017.67.

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* The author is the PI of the „Lendület” (Momentum) Mobility Research Group at the Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (LP 2015-3/2015)

Figure 5. Tin–arsenic chart based on artifacts of the Zalaszabar hoard, Western Hungary

Figure 8. Texture results of the TOF-ND analysis of the flanged axe from Zalaszabar at the neck, and at the edge of the axe

Figure 7. Metal ornaments from inhumation and cremation burials of the Middle Bronze Age cemetery excavated at Bonyhád

Along the Danube and at the Foothills of the North-Eastern Hungarian Mountains: Some Data on the Distribution of Stone Raw Materials in the Late Iron Age

Zoltán Czajlik
Eötvös Loránd University
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 9 Issue 2  (2020): 331-342 DOI:10.38145/2020.2.331 

Stones as raw materials are important environmental resources often found at prehistoric sites. Since their various types essentially retained their original geological features, it is generally relatively easy to identify their origin. Nevertheless, there is hardly any systematic research on late prehistoric stone raw materials. Furthermore, these materials are mentioned very inconsistently and the geological terms, definitions and analyzes are absent from the discussions. The general picture that we can sketch based on secondary literature is therefore mosaic-like. However, it is by no means impossible to identify extraction sites. Based on on-site experience and using modern analyzes, it is possible, for example, to differentiate between individual types of sandstone and andesite. From the perspective of future research, analyzes of late Iron Age stone materials from well-studied archaeological contexts could contribute to understand better how stones as raw materials were used in late prehistoric periods.

Keywords: natural resources, stone raw materials, Carpathian Basin, Iron Age

Introduction

Stone raw materials are important environmental resources. They offer a good topic for research, since they are usually frequently present among the finds of both prehistoric settlements and cemeteries. An additional advantage of this material is that the various ways in which they were modified and put to use did not change them significantly, unlike in the case of many other raw materials, such as clay ceramics or in various ores. Given that their original geological conditions are essentially preserved, it is usually comparatively easy to identify their provenance. Regrettably, in spite of the suitability of this resource as a useful tool on the basis of which to pursue study of a given period, there is very little systematic research regarding stone raw materials from the Late Iron Age, in contrast with the secondary literature on earlier periods of prehistory. These materials are mentioned only inconsistently in the scholarship, and the geological terms, definitions, and analyses are missing from these discussions. The general image we can outline concerning the secondary literature is mosaic-like, and this reflects the lack of research.

The most important figures in the history of the Carpathian Basin in the Late Iron Age were the Celts. Their arrival and presence in the area can be reconstructed in comparative detail on the basis of historical sources and archaeological evidence. Regarding the latter, attention should be drawn to the several waves of western immigration which began in 450 BC and to the changing settlement areas of the different periods.1 Furthermore, the remarkable changes observed from the third century BC should be mentioned, which are associated with the formation of many larger and more structured settlements and with the more intensive utilization of natural resources. This process is well documented in the Western Celtic territories and especially in Czech lands and Moravia,2 further important study has been published from the Scordiscan region,3 but it cannot yet be outlined in the whole Eastern Celtic area. Similarly, the development of the next economic-technological stage, the establishment of the oppida (fortified Iron Age settlements representing the pre-industrial level), is not common here, and these settlements existed much shorter period in the region east from the Danube than in the west.

Taking into account the archaeological-historical circumstances, we would list the most important available data about the use of the raw materials needed for stone tools. Despite the obvious difficulties and the lack of data, due the increasingly intense archaeometric research which has been underway over the course of the past few decades, certain raw material sites and the networks in which they were involved are slowly being outlined, as are their positions in the regional resource supply chains.

Stone Tools

Although various stone tools were often found in the archaeological material of Celtic settlements, they were only rarely studied in detail, with clear discussions of their geological provenance. Two main tool categories should be given primary consideration in the research: the sharpening stones and the grinding/mill stones. For these different functions, stones with different characteristics were needed, as the first tool was used for sharpening metals, while the second was mainly used for grinding grain. While in the first case stones which contained quartz (e.g. sandstone) are especially favorable, hard rock types (e.g. extrusive igneous volcanic rocks: andesite, dacite, etc.) are suitable for grinding.

1. Sharpening stones

Most of the known sharpening stones were discovered used and fragmented, buried in buildings within settlement areas. In the Eastern Celtic territories, however, most of the large cemeteries also had some finds in the tombs, and sharpening stones were unearthed among the personal belongings of
the deceased.

The excavated whetstones of the Pottenbrunn cemetery (Austria, representing the Early Celtic Period) are made from flysch (sandstone; tomb no. 520, no. 1005) and quartzite originating from greywacke strata.4 According to the authors, with regards to the provenance of the raw material, the gravelly alluvia of the Traisen River should be primarily taken into account. i.e. these objects seem to be made of local secondarily deposited raw materials.

The evaluation of the material from the Celtic site at Süttő - Sáncföldek is still in progress, but based on the excavated features, it can be dated to the period between the second half of the fourth century BC and the beginning or middle of the third century BC.5 The whetstones of the site were studied by Dóra Kürthy, and most of them can be linked to the Lábatlan Sandstone Formation, located 8–10 km to the east of the Süttő plateau.

The sharpening stones from the third-century BC settlement of Sajópetri Hosszú-dűlő were mostly made of hard, fine-grained sandstone.6 The exact geographical provenance has not been identified, but there are several different types of sandstone nearby among the sedimentary rocks in the valley of the Sajó River, i.e. within a distance of 15–20 km. It also should be noted that 50–60 km away from this microregion, connected to the valley from the West are the Ózd-Pétervására Hills, which include a sandstone zone significant in the regional context.7 It would definitely be worth dedicating a more detailed geoarchaeological study to it. In the contemporary cemetery of Sajópetri–Homoki szőlőskert (grave nr. 62/136, 1 km to the south of the settlement) and in the pit 03.46A.194 of the settlement, whetstones from rhyolitic tuff were also excavated. This material originates from the east, from the Tokaj Mountains.8 Similarly to the case of the Ózd-Pétervására Hills, the distance between the Sajópetri microregion, the southern part of the Sajó Valley and this raw material source is 40–50 km.

The Celtic settlement of Nitra-Šindolka is from the same period, and it has also been thoroughly studied. The majority (13) of the 17 geologically determined sharpening stones proved to be sandstone. Their provenance is unknown.9

The whetstone found in one of the pits of the oppidum at Gellérthegy, which is from the Late Celtic period (end of the end century BC and beginning of the first), was made of a fine variant of the Hárshegy sandstone, which was identified by Péter Bohn as a type known from the Ezüst-hegy in Budakalász.10 This area can be reached along the Danube River on a 13–14 km long road, so it can be considered, from point of view of Gellérthegy, a microregional natural resource. The whetstones and polishing tools of the Bratislava-Devín oppidum were published by Karol Pieta as finds belonging to a workshop. Most of them are sandstone, but there is one tool made of rock crystal, which suggests goldsmithing.11 As a possible provenance area for rock crystals within the Carpathian Basin, we can mention the Eastern Alps, specifically the High Tauern. This hypothesis is indirectly confirmed by the rock crystals unearthed at Magdalensberg,12 and also by the Neolithic rock crystal mining site discovered at Riepenkar. Although the latter site is far from Devín, which is thought to be the western gateway to the Carpathian Basin, a number of rock crystal finds indicate the important route connecting the Riepenkar zone with the Inn and Danube valleys.13

2. Grinding stones, millstones

At the Celtic site of Süttő–Sáncföldek, we also excavated broken pieces of grinding stones deposited in a pit. Their material is andesite, and according to the research of Dóra Kürthy, they originate from the Börzsöny or the Visegrád Mountains.14 Although further geological studies are necessary to determine their provenance accurately, it is certainly noteworthy that on the western edge of the source area of the andesite, on both banks of the Danube, very important, partly contemporary Celtic sites are located. The Celtic cemetery of Szob-Kőzúzó was found at the mouth of the Ipoly River.15 The settlement presumably belonging to the cemetery16 was discovered by the riverside approximately 500 m higher. Farther, 3 km away, on Csák Hill an andesite quarry that is still in use is located. On the right side of the Danube, in Pilismarót-Basaharc, another Celtic cemetery was excavated which is also significant in the supra-regional context.17 The contemporary settlement18 was identified ca. 1–1.5 km east of the graves, on the riverbank. The best-known locality of andesite in the region is 4–5 km southeast of the Celtic sites of Pilismarót, on Szekrény Hill. For exact identification, further research is needed, but we know that the raw material of the grinding stones of Süttő originates from a distance of at least 40 km downstream.

The Late Iron Age third-century BC settlement of Sajópetri Hosszú-dűlő was excavated on an area covering more than 40,000 m2, and it provided a huge amount of stone material, including larger, mostly fragmented tool stones. The only intact grinding stone was unearthed in the votive ensemble 02.A.93. The best-preserved rotary quern fragment was in the building 03.B.32. Most of these stone tools belong to semi subterranean buildings, and they are made of porous/compact andesite. To identify the provenance area of the andesite, we took into account the probable origin of the rhyolite tuff (Mád/Tállya/Szerencs) which was also discovered in the settlement, and in 2007, we suggested that it comes from the Tokaj Mountains, which are 40–45 km away, but we did not exclude the possibility that they came from the Mátra Mountains.19

Millstone and grinding stone exploitation sites (in total exceeding an area of 10km2) were discovered at the foothills of the Mátra Mountains in the Domoszló microregion.20 At the Pipis-hegy, Középső-hegy, Hosszú-hegy, Hegyes-hegy (etc.) a unique rock type of the Nagyhársas Andesite Formation was utilized. The size and the shape of the andesite bombs and boulders made it easier to produce the tool stones.21 Based on geological analyses of excavated archaeological stone tools, the andesite from Domoszló was used as early as the Middle Bronze Age (Füzesabony culture) and until the seventeenth century (Szendrő-Vár), i.e. this raw material may have been known to the Celts as well. The most significant Celtic site in the surroundings is discussed in a 2012 monograph22 on the cemetery of the Ludas–Varjú-dűlő, 10–12 km south-southwest of the raw material extraction site. The necropolis was established in the same period as the Sajópetri site, in the third century BC, but a settlement with a similar scale has not been discovered around it yet. Before the expansion of a lignite mine, there were rescue excavations on an area of 30 hectares,23 and field surveys were done along the Bene Valley,24 In the course of both, remains of smaller farmsteads were found in the vicinity. Nothing has been published on the stone material of the excavated settlement remains in Ludas, and there were no andesite tool stones in the burial sites of the Varjú-dűlő. However, there may still have been a connection between the site and the Mátra Mountains, as the graves are oriented to the main peaks.25

Based on the above-mentioned facts, we can assume that in the Late Iron Age, andesite was in use in the Börzsöny/Visegrád Mountains, the Tokaj Mountains, and the Mátra Mountains. In addition, previous studies suggest that the extraction of andesite in northern Hungary began in the Cserhát Mountain range relatively early, as the basaltic andesite millstones of the Sarmatian settlement of Üllő (third and fourth centuries AD) suggest.26

Péter Bohn examined two millstones from the Late Celtic oppidum at Budapest-Gellérthegy.27 He identified the provenance area as laying either in the Börzsöny Mountains or the Visegrád Mountains, but no further research was conducted. In this case, assuming waterborne transport, we can calculate a distance of 50–60 km. Other oppida on the banks of the Danube (Devín and Bratislava) draw attention to a different important raw material source, namely the basalt of Pauliberg at Oberpullendorf (Austria).28 During the Late Celtic period, this basalt was transported not only to the Danube Valley but also to areas lying more to the north, to the Moravian territories.29

The millstone found in a subterranean building at the excavation site of the fortified settlement of Nitriansky Hrádok belongs to the same period, and it is also made of andesite.30 Although in the Northern Carpathians (e.g. Liptovská Mara), earlier Tatra granite and rhyolite were also used for stone tools, a remarkable quarry and production area for andesite grinding stones with semi-finished and waste products is known from Rakša, where there is a Late Celtic settlement nearby.31 The site is located far from Nitriansky Hrádok (130 km), but probably most of the route (85–90 km) could have been made on the River Nitra.

One can also mention several relevant studies done outside the Carpathian Basin, in neighboring territories, such as northern Italy and Bohemia. The fourth-century and third-century BC grinding stones from the material of Monte Bibele originate from the volcanits located around Orvieto, which was at least 300 km away from the site across the Apennines and much farther if using sea lanes.32 The era of the oppida is represented in Bohemia by specialized centers like Lovosice and the Kunětická Mountains. They supplied the entire northern part of the region and often even more distant areas with their products.33

Concluding Remarks

We examined three regions from the period of the Celtic expansion to the Carpathian Basin: the Traisental; the section of the Danube between Devín and Budapest; and the border zone of the Hungarian Plain and the mountains in northern Hungary, the region from the Mátraalja to the Tokaj Mountains. In the Pottenbrunn, Süttő, and Sajópetri microregions, the evidence suggests that the sandstone for sharpening stones was supplied mostly from local/microregional sources of raw materials. Nevertheless, in the case of Sajópetri, we should bear in mind the use of two different regional sources for raw materials, the Pétervására Hills for sandstone and the Tokaj Mountains for rhyolites. Based on the available data, in the oppidum at Budapest-Gellérthegy, we can observe the use of microregional sandstone raw materials, while the rock crystal artefacts in the Devín oppidum indicate an economic background that made it possible to procure special raw materials for these urban settlements.

The distribution of grinding stones suggests a regional network system. Andesite, the most commonly identified raw material in our region, is clearly linked to its geographical source sites within the Börzsöny/Visegrád Mountains and the Tokaj Mountains, and in the more distant Mátra Mountains we can even determine a very significant extraction site for it (the Domoszló region). The number of grinding stones from the fourth and third centuries BC with known provenance is still small, but in the case of Süttő and Sajópetri, we see that these heavy tools were transported over a relatively long distance.

The exploitation of andesite from the Börzsöny/Visegrád Mountains did not stop during the period of oppida, as the findings at Budapest-Gellérthegy suggest, although this cannot be confirmed by a contemporary settlement discovered on the Danube Bend. We do not even have indirect data on the utilization of the andesite of the Domoszló region and Tokaj Mountains from this period, but we know of a mining site in the northern Carpathians (Rakša). The tools of several Late Celtic settlements in Moravia and millstones from the oppidum in Devín and Bratislava were made of basalt, and in their case, provenance can be determined precisely (Oberpullendorf–Pauliberg, Austria).

The studies listed above show that, in the case of the grinding/mill stones, the quality of the raw material was of primary importance, and despite their large size and weight, they were transported over considerable distances. At the same time, this also means that high-quality raw material may have significantly increased the value of the resource supply of a given micro-region.

We have seen that it is far from impossible to identify extraction sites. Based on field experience and with the use of modern analyzes, individual types of sandstone and andesite can be distinguished from one another. From the perspective of future research, we need analyses of Late Iron Age stone materials from well-studied archaeological contexts. Such analyses may lead us to a better understanding of the late prehistoric role of this natural resource, which has been somewhat neglected in the secondary literature.

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Péterdi, Bálint, Katalin T. Bíró, and Zoltán Tóth. “Domoszló: Grinding Stone and Millstone Production Centre in Hungary: Preliminary Results.” In The Exploitation of Raw Materials in Prehistory: Sourcing, Processing and Distribution, edited by Telmo Pereira, Xavier Terradas, and Nuno Bicho, 90–97. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017.

Pieta, Karol. Die keltische Besiedlung der Slowakei. Jüngere Latènezeit. Nitra: Archeologický Ústav SAV, 2010.

Ramsl, Peter C. and Erich Draganits. “Steinartefakte aus Pottenbrunn.” In Das eisenzeitliche Gräberfeld von Pottenbrunn, SG St. Pölten, Niederösterreich. Fundberichte aus Österreich Materialheft A11, edited by Peter C. Ramsl, 366. Vienna: Horn, 2002.

Renzulli, Alberto, Patrizia Santi, Giovanni Nappi, Mario Luni, and Daniele Vitali. “Provenance and trade of volcanic rock millstones from Etruscan-Celtic and Roman archaeological sites in Central Italy.” European Journal of Mineralogy 14 (2002): 175–83. doi: 10.1127/0935-1221/2002/0014-0175.

Szabó, Miklós. “Les Celtes orientaux.” In Le bassin des Carpates avant l’arrivée des Hongrois : Celtes, Romains, peuples barbares du haut Moyen Âge dans le bassin du Danube 400 av. J.-C. – 895 apr. J.-C., edited by Miklós Szabó, László Borhy, Therese Olajos, Noël-Yves Tonnerre, and István Zimonyi, 17–146. Rennes: PUR, 2019.

Szabó, Miklós, and Károly Tankó. “La nécropole celtique à Ludas – Varjú-dűlő.” In La nécropole celtique à Ludas – Varjú-dűlő, edited by Miklós Szabó, Károly Tankó, and Zoltán Czajlik, 9–152. Budapest: l’Harmattan, 2012.

Szabó, Miklós, Károly Tankó, and Zoltán Czajlik, eds. La nécropole celtique à Ludas – Varjú-dűlő. Budapest: l’Harmattan, 2012.

Tankó, Károly. “The graves of Szob and some southern aspects of La Tène finds from northern Hungary.” In The Clash of Cultures? The Celts and the Macedonian World, edited by Mitja Guštin and Wolfgang David, 259–67. Manching: Kelten-Römer Museum, 2014.

Waldhauser, Jiři. “Keltské rotační mlýny v Čechách / Keltische Drehmühlen in Böhmen” [Celtic rotary mills in Bohemia]. Památky archeologické 72 (1981): 153–221.

Wefers, Stephanie. Latènezeitliche Mühlen aus dem Gebiet zwischen den Steinbruchrevieren Mayen und Lovosice. Monographien RGZM 95. Vulkanpark-Forschungen 9. Mainz: RGZM, 2012.

Zirkl, Erich Johann. “Zur Herkunft der Rohstoffe einiger latènezeitlicher Handmühlen.” Archaeologia Austriaca 18 (1955): 90–92.

Figure 1. Archaeological sites from the Celtic period in the Carpathian Basin and in the Eastern Alps mentioned in the paper (black dots): a. 5th–3rd centuries BC, 1. Pottenbrunn – Steinfeld, 2. Nitra – Šindolka, 3. Süttő – Sáncföldek, 4. Szob – Kőzúzó, 5. Pilismarót – Basaharc, 6. Ludas – Varjú-dűlő, 7. Sajópetri – Hosszú-dűlő/Homoki-szőlőskert, b. 2nd–1st centuries BC, 8. Magdalensberg, 9. Bratislava – Devín, 10. Nitriansky Hrádok, 11. Liptovská Mara, 12. Budapest – Gellérthegy

Lithic raw material sources in the Carpathian Basin and in the Eastern Alps mentioned in the paper (black triangles): a. Identified, 13. Riepenkar, 14. Oberpullendorf – Pauliberg, 15. Lábatlan, 16. Rakša, 17. Budakalász – Ezüst-hegy, 18. Tatra Mountains, 19. Domoszló, 20. Tokaj Mountains, b. Assumed, 21. High Tauern, 22. Szob – Csák-hegy, 23. Pilismarót – Szekrény-hegy, 24. Ózd – Pétervására Hills.

Map edited by Zoltán Czajlik and Balázs Holl.

Dendrochronology and Environmental History: The Difficulties of Interpretation

András Grynaeus
Hungarian Dendrochronological Laboratory
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 9 Issue 2  (2020): 302-314 DOI:10.38145/2020.2.302

The study provides insights into questions concerning forest management and timber use by drawing on case studies in the dendrochronological research which has been underway over the course of the past couple of decades in Hungary. The essay refers to natural resource-use and historical and demographic questions which arose in analyses of the wooden materials. The study questions some of the topoi of historical research, such as the immense forest loss traditionally associated with the Ottoman wars.

Keywords: dendrochronology, Hungary, forest resources, Ottoman wars, environmental history

The dendrochronological research which has been underway in Hungary for more than two decades now has brought to light a number of environmental history (related) data which goes beyond the use of the method in dating. If one takes a closer look at these data, several questions arise many of which remain unresolved. This study discusses some (if not all) of these questions.

In 2017, Gergely Rákóczi, associate of the Dobó István Castle Museum of Eger, excavated a wooden sluice bridge structure in Eger in the bed of the Eger Stream.1 Based on the four samples, the earliest year in which the oak trees which were used for the construction could have been cut was 1798. Analyses of the beams showed that the trees were considerably older than what is considered the ideal age for cutting (90 to 120 years), as the samples had 242, 257, 117, and 168 consecutive rings. Thus, these four samples offered a dataset which spanned a long period and could be used for dating and other investigations.

A relatively new and increasingly used method in dendrochronology which has yielded important insights is dendro-provenancing. By using many regional chronologies, researchers try to identify the original habitats of the trees used for timber and thus offer a spatial comparison.2 As Fig. 2 shows,3 the tree rings in the samples from Eger fit best with the chronology from trees in present-day Slovakia, which means that their original habitat was probably there.

This conclusion seems logical, as the Archbishopric of Eger had significant land holdings in this region. Furthermore, it harmonizes with the familiar topoi concerning the Ottoman Empire’s use of Hungary for its timber and the destructive impact on forests of the war to liberate the country from Ottoman occupation, as it suggests that there was a dearth of suitable trees in the Great Hungarian Plain and timber had brought in from the north. However, data referred to by Eszter Magyar concerning the valley of the Hron (Garam) River (a river in Slovakia was a tributary of the Danube) are frequently cited in support of the contention that the region of present-day Slovakia was not used for timber mining.4 In Magyar’s words, “as is clear from a lawsuit in 1544, […] the dynasties of charcoal burners who had been working in the easily accessible forests of the area since the death of King Matthias I [1490] cut down and charred the forests for the second or third time in little more than 50 years.”5 The finds from Eger, however, shed light on this conclusion, as the trees felled in the late 1700s at the age of 200 to 250 were already about 100 to 150 years old at the end of the Ottoman period. This suggests that during the period of the Ottoman presence in the Carpathian Basin, the forests in present-day Slovakia were never completely timbered or burned.

In 2012, during the construction of the new gym of the Saint Elisabeth High School in Esztergom, Edit Tari, an associate of the Balassi Bálint Museum, excavated a number of timber-framed Ottoman-period wells.6 The most “beautiful” and elaborate structure was no. 60, the timber of which was cut during the winter of 1584–1585.7 The builders used trunks cleaved in two, so in each case it was possible to measure the full series of the tree rings, while in most of the samples, both the bark and the sapwood were removed. Fortunately, in eight cases, they were not accurate enough, and in three cases not even the bark was removed decently. If one looks at the relative age of the timber used for the well, it is clear that very young trees were used. Thus, the well supports the conclusion concerning timber mining by the Ottomans in the forests of the Carpathian Basin.

However, when applied in these cases, dendro-provenancing yields surprising conclusions. The timber of the well can be best dated according to the chronology valid for the Vienna Basin. In other words, the timber used in Esztergom came from the Danube River valley or the surroundings of Vienna.8 This means that the timber mining was not “Ottoman” but rather “Ottoman period.” In other words, it was done on the other side of the border.9 One is also confronted with the rather surprising fact that, among the three (hostile) polities that shared the territory of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, there was considerable trade. This somewhat contradicts the traditional view.10

In 2015, Gábor Wilhelm and Máté Varga, archaeologists from the Katona József Museum, excavated two “barrel wells” in the center of the town of Kecskemét (Nagykörösi Street 7–9), i.e. two well structures in which, within the timber frame, there barrels, one in each (objects 19 and 26).11

Similar structures are familiar from the Roman period (e.g. from Ménfőcsanak) but are unique in late medieval contexts.12 The timber material is well suited for analysis, and it turned out they were cut at the earliest in 1486 and 1484.13 As there was no way to provide a more precise dating for the samples, it cannot be determined whether they made their way to Kecskemét in the late Middle Ages and the barrels, which were considered useless, were re-used in this manner or whether they were brought to the town in the period of the Ottoman occupation and were recycled as “rolls.” Unfortunately, there is no way to resolve this question, which is regrettable, as the timber originates from Transylvania. More precisely, they best match the chronologies of Biertan (Berethalom) and Târgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely).14 This means that they made their way Kecskemét by trade. The question of what was originally stored in them is fascinating, if still unanswered, and it would be similar interesting to know whether the barrels also testify to trading activities across the borders in the Ottoman period similar to the practices observed in the context of the site at Esztergom. The uncertainty lies in the fact that, because of the post quem dating of the barrels, it cannot be determined whether they were brought to the town in the last years of the unified Kingdom of Hungary or only after the tripartition.

In Budapest, at Kacsa Street 15–23 (in the second district of the city), Katalin Éder and Tibor Hable (both of whom were associates of the Budapest History Museum at the time) found wooden wells the trees for which were felled around 1584–1585. These Ottoman-period objects also testify to “transborder” trade (certainly present towards the Kingdom of Hungary and presumably towards the Principality of Transylvania) in the life of the country after the fall of the medieval kingdom, as the material of the well can be best dated according to the Viennese chronology.15

As a method, dendrochronology bears surprises for scholars of significantly earlier periods as well. In 2011,16 Katalin Sebők and Gábor V. Szabó (Institute of Archaeology, Eötvös Loránd University) unearthed a well that be dated to the Late Bronze Age (Urnfield culture) at Pusztataksony–Ledence.17 Most of the timber in the well (twenty of the twenty-two pieces) was of ash (Fraxinus sp.). The difficulty of interpreting the finds lies in the fact that one cannot draw a distinction among the three species of ash that are indigenous to the Carpathian Basin, the European ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.), the flowering ash (Fraxinus ornus L.), and the narrow-leaved ash (Fraxinus angustifolia subsp. pannonica) on the basis of the image of their tissues.

The habitats of the three species, however, differ. The first two species are mountainous, while the Hungarian subspecies of the narrow-leaved ash prefers flood plains.18 This provides us with an opportunity for further interpretation. One could assume that the trees were transported, in which case one gains valuable data concerning the economic life of a community very far away from Hungary today, both in space and time. However, one can interpret the data from an environmental history perspective. In that case, the data tells of the significantly different composition of species in the flood plain forests back then. Which reading of the data would be correct?19 The site provides us with one more surprise: young (only 40- to 50-year old) trees were used here again. Why? This question, i.e. the age of the felled trees, is difficult for specialists even at sites on which they have more information.

In the cases of a number of excavation sites, information can be acquired on the ages of the trees used to craft different objects. A telling example is the case of the two Neolithic wells (nos. 629 and 583) that were unearthed at Szalkszentmárton–Táborállás in 2017 by Bernadett Kovacsóczy (an associate of the Katona József Museum).20 The wells were built of trees felled with an eleven-year gap. For the older well, they used trees which were 200 years old, while for the younger, the trees were roughly 150 years old.21 This indicates two things: when building wells, there were trees of those ages at the disposal of the community within a reasonable distance, which means that the forests in the territory had been left intact for at least 200 years. However, it also became clear that the newly settled population started to use the forests, so after a decade, they had to “fall back on” the less suitable timber, which was “only” 150 years old.

The use of old trees can be observed at many sites throughout Hungary, such as in the case of a Celtic-period well22 unearthed at site no. 212 (Center for Heritage Protection, Hungarian National Museum, 2010) by the M3 highway at Pócspetri–Bikarét, where trees which were 100 to 160 years old were built into the well’s structure. But the same could be observed at the Sarmatian-period wells found at Püspökladány–Sárréti Csali-tanya (2013)23 and at site no. 14 at Tiszagyenda–Lakhatom.24 One tends to conclude that the use of old trees indicates an undisturbed environment, while uninhabited territories and the use of younger trees shows a disturbed environment and densely inhabited areas. However, if one has some background knowledge of these periods, one may call into question the accuracy of this reading of the data.

Site no. 45 by the M6 highway close to Szekszárd, which was excavated by János Ódor (Wosinsky Mór Museum) in 2010, prompts one to call into question the above conclusion.25 Two Avar-period wells (nos. 53 and 70) were also made of timber from trees felled within a gap of eleven years. This is just a coincidence with respect to the aforementioned example, of course, but the interpretation is more problematic, as in this case, the structure of the older well was made of trees felled at about 100 years of age, while in the case of the younger well, the trees used were over 200 years old when felled.26

Is it reasonable consistently to associate the use of older trees with demographic tendencies? Do we really have to assume that there were long periods during which areas were uninhabited and/or periods without forest clearance? Or would it be more realistic to set aside the notion of forests going untouched for generations and consider the possibility that forests were consciously used and cultivated? Could one reasonably make this assumption in the case of the Avars, the Sarmatians, and the Celtic-period populations? Or can one communities inhabited a certain area? The question is clear: should the features make this assumption with regard to periods in which different peoples/of the wood be understood as demographic data or as cultivation data? Do they yield conclusions concerning demographic processes or farming knowledge and practices?

At this point, one must consider methods of forest clearance in historical times. A number of questions and many possible answers arose in the course of an excavation led by Gábor Váczi (an associate of the Institute of Archaeology, Eötvös Loránd University) at site no. 5 at Tiszabura–Bónis-hát. The most important “source” was an Avar-period well. The eight beams studied included trees younger than 100 when felled and older than 200, but only one in between those ages.27 Why?

Was this the result of clear cutting? This would explain the mixed ages of the trees. However, this may also have been the result of selective cutting, as based on the sizes and the shapes of the beams, they may have been carefully selected. Or could their placement in the structure of the well be related to their age? There is no substantive data that could support or dismiss this possibility. Do we have so many unanswered questions simply because the low number of samples distort the results? Is this problem aggravated by the fact that parts of the samples have been destroyed (some of the beams and planks), so some parts of the dataset are missing, and some of the external tree rings may be rotten? Of course, one can also interpret the feature as a consequence of a particular method used to shape the beams, because assuming that the wood was cut from a suitably mature tree which was cleaved in half to create two 100 year-old beams, we may have only found one of them. This can also be understood as a special feature of the excavation, which can be traced back to the fact that only the bottom beams survived. The ones above them were destroyed over the centuries.

Can we assume that different methods of wood-cutting were used? I.e., is it possible that people at certain periods could not fell trees of any size? This may seem plausible, but it is unlikely that, if they were able to fell the old trees, they could not deal with the younger ones. Is it possible that the trees preserved traces of demographic processes? Or are both true? Did one of the peoples arriving in the region not know how to or did not want to fell larger trees, and so the trees survived only to be felled and used by later groups? Environmental reasons can also be considered, as for instance younger trees stands could have fallen victim to an ice-flood, while older trees may have proved to be more resilient. And in that case, we have not considered explanations concerning possible rituals or beliefs, such as “sacred oaks” left standing by previous peoples who had lived there.

Which interpretation is correct? How far can an archaeologist/scholar go in interpreting such data? These questions are difficult to answer, but similar features can be observed at late medieval (Vácszentlászló–Hajta-patak28) and Árpád Era (Hódmezővásárhely–Kingéc29) sites, and these similarities limit the interpretive possibilities to some extent, certainly in connection with ritual practices.

What explanations are the most convincing in such cases? And what methods should researchers use when positing explanations? Should they brainstorm, or should they patiently wait until, at some point in the future, enough data have been gathered to yield definite answers? Should one consider stick to observations of features or should one build theories, which of course involves the risk of error? These questions are not simple to answer.

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Grynaeus, András, János Gábor Ódor. “Dendrokronológia: Avar kori kutak Szekszárd, Varga Peti-dűlő, 1. lelőhely” [Dendrochronology: Avar period wells at Szekszárd Varga Peti-dűlő site no. 1]. In Nem térkép e táj: Régészeti kutatások eredményei Szekszárd területén 2006–2015 [The landscape is not a map: Results of the archaeological investigations at Szeszárd, 2006–2015], edited by András K. Németh, 31. Szekszárd, 2016.

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Tari, Edit. “Az Esztergom-vízivárosi oszmán fajanszedény-kincslelet” [The Ottoman faience-treasure hoard at Esztergom–Víziváros]. Archaeológiai Értesítő 141 (2016): 195–210.

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Vadas, András, Péter Szabó. “Not Seeing the Forest for the Trees? Ottoman-Hungarian Wars and Forest Resources.” Hungarian Historical Review 7, no. 3 (2018): 477–509.

Várkonyi, Gábor. Ünnepek és hétköznapok: Művelődés és mentalitás a török kori Magyarországon [Feasts and weekdays: Education and mentality in Hungary in the Ottoman Era]. Budapest: General Press, 2009.

Figure 3. Well 60 (image by Edit Tari). Relative age of the beams (the light fields on the diagram mark the hardwood, while the dark fields indicate the sapwood of the tree rings)

Balázs Ablonczy
Research Centre for the Humanities
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In the wake of World War I, the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy and creation of new political borders in accordance with the peace treaties prompted more than 400,000 people from the lost territories to seek refuge in Hungary. In this essay, I map the policies adopted by the Hungarian state in its efforts to integrate and pacify refugees, but also at times to discourage refugees from coming to Trianon Hungary. These policies were implemented with the participation of ministries, refugee organizations, large state-run enterprises, and municipal councils. I also interpret the various strategies used by individual actors in these processes. Taken together, the policies and strategies adopted by the state demonstrate the de facto prolongation of wartime administrative practices and offer examples of how the state turned against its own Christian, nationalist, and authoritarian ideology in the course of its efforts to keep prospective refugees from entering post-Trianon Hungary. How the questions raised by the refugee crises were tackled in the country was conditioned by multiple considerations and perspectives. The ambiguities of the policies that were adopted explain in part the long silence that has fallen over the issue of post–World War I refugees in Hungary.

Keywords: refugees, Trianon Peace Treaty, state administration, government, memory

The post–World War I flight of Hungarians was relatively organized and, most importantly, did not involve as much bloodshed as other exoduses during and after the war, such as the plights of the Greek-Turkish or Galician refugees. Moreover, this is an untold story in the Hungarian historiography. Recent articles by foreign scholars (especially Friederike Kind-Kovacs and Ilse Josepha Lazaroms) have drawn attention to this forgotten topic, focusing on children’s relief or on Jewish wagon dwellers in Budapest, but they have tended to focus more narrowly on particular groups.1

During the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in October and November 1918, the first wave of refugees from the borderlands reached the core territories of Hungary. This flow consisted essentially of railway workers, post officers, village and county clerks, and officers in the police forces and the gendarmerie. On October 31, Mihály Károlyi, an aristocrat, was nominated head of the government by Charles IV, the last emperor and king of the Monarchy. Károlyi would be the first prime minister of the newly formed Hungarian People’s Republic and then, from January, the first president of the same People’s Republic. His cabinet, composed of social democrats, the so-called bourgeois radicals (polgári radikálisok, a left-wing party consisting mostly of urban intellectuals), and people from the former Independence Party, had to confront the invasion of the former Hungarian territories by Serb, Czechoslovak, and Romanian troops, as well as the collapse of the public food supply, the Spanish flu, and a deepening political crisis inside the country. Károlyi’s government had not been recognized by the Allies or the Paris Peace Conference, and his main activity in foreign affairs was limited essentially to making repeated protests concerning the advancement of foreign troops on Hungarian soil to the head of the Allied military mission in Budapest, Lieutenant-Colonel Fernand Vix, whose so-called second note (March 20, 1919) led to the demission of Mihály Károlyi as President of the People’s Republic, which was followed by the communist takeover on March 21, 1919 and the proclamation of a Republic of Councils, which fell due to Romanian military intervention on August 1. That moment, followed then by the election of Miklós Horthy as Regent of Hungary on March 1, 1920, can be regarded as the beginning of the counterrevolutionary period, and it constituted a crucial shift in the handling the issue of refugees.2

This was an issue, however, which was relatively underrepresented in the Hungarian public sphere. Although the Hungarian press reported on it extensively in the first half of 1920s, the topic was barely taken up in political debate. The social side of the question was peddled by the opposition parties (social democrats, liberals, and the radical right), who wanted to demonstrate the government’s incompetence in the matter.

Similarly there were no movies, plays, or novels of any remarkable success about the refugee issue, or at least there were no works which have since become part of canonized national culture. After 1945, for reasons quite different from the ones in the earlier period, this topic was not among the preferred themes of the state’s memory regime. After 1956, for the Kádár regime, which was constructing its own legitimacy on anti-nationalist foundations, such a topic would have presumably been awkward, although the experience of flight appeared in some memoirs. There have been only a few attempts to explain the silence of the interwar period. While alongside its anti-communist and, at times, pronounced anti-Semitic stances the demand for the revision of the territorial boundaries of the Paris Treaties was one of the pillars of the Horthy era in Hungary (1920–1944), the regime did not wish to exploit the potential of the trope of flight, despite the uses it might have had in state propaganda. This paper discusses the possible reasons for this. Historians have not addressed the issue in depth. There is only one monographic study on the refugees in Hungary after the Treaty of Trianon. István I. Mocsy, an author who lives in the USA, attempted to present the issue on the basis of published materials. His location conditioned the type of sources on which he could draw.3

In this study, I analyze the reactions of Hungarian state organs (including the state railway), explore the motives behind their actions, and discuss images of refugees and the strategies which were developed by the community of refugees to promote their interests. First, I briefly present state policies and features of the social profile of wagon dwellers and of those who were repatriated. I do not interrogate sources to determine the reasons behind people’s decisions to flee. I inquire, rather, into the relationship between the circumstances of integration and dissipation of refugees into Hungarian society despite state policies that neither were effective nor were products of measured reflection and the erasure and transformation of the memory of refugees.

Numbers of Refugees in Hungary and Their Places of Origin

The immediate prelude to the flight between 1918 and 1924 and the test of the Hungarian refugee policy was the large-scale movement from the eastern and southern border areas of Transylvania, which was triggered by the Romanian invasion in August 1916. More than 200,000 people fled to interior areas of Hungary, and since the Hungarian public administration could not stand the pressure, refugees appeared in Transdanubia as well.4 This shaped the ways in which authorities treated similar crisis situations, such as aid, child protection, and refugee reception centers (for instance, Hajdú County, the capital of which is the city of Debrecen, was designated for refugees coming from Csík County, today Ciuc County in Romania, and in particular the capital of the county, Csíkszereda, today Miercurea Ciuc).5

Table 1. Refugees arriving in Hungary from different countries, 1918–1924 (based on data from the National Office for Refugees)

The repatriation of Transylvanian refugees had hardly been completed when, in autumn 1918, large waves of refugees poured into the interior areas from all occupied territories, not only from Transylvania. Initially, the movement was spontaneous, but it was subsequently replaced with a practice of expulsion on behalf of citizens of the successor states. To the extent that the military activities and the blockade permitted, the stream of refugees continued during the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Despite research efforts, we have only scattered information about the institutional framework of refugee policy between March 1919 and August 1919. According to the National Office for Refugees, which was set up in 1920, by 1924 roughly 350,000 people had fled to Hungary due to the change of borders. (However, this figure is a suspiciously round number, and it is likely that it is not precise.) The author of the monographic study that addressed the issue, Istvan Mocsy, estimated a much larger number in 1983. He talked estimated that there were between 420,000 and 425,000 refugees.6 According to official statistics, of the 350,000 refugees, 104,000 had had some form of employment (some 20,000 had been civil servants and 20,000 had been railway employees). Regarding this group, we need to correct two widespread beliefs which are based on stereotypes. First, most refugees did not depend on the state for employment, even if the proportion of civil servants was much larger among refugees than it was in the general population of the country. Second, we do not know the proportion of those who were expelled from the new states by the new authorities, nor do we know how many relocated because their professional positions made it practical to do so and how many simply chose to leave.7 In order to answer these questions, one would need a comparative study of citizenship policies in the surrounding states. For the moment, no such study has been done.8

The Policies of the Hungarian State

The activities of the Hungarian state related to the reception of refugees were ambiguous, to say the least. The first refugees in October-November 1918 were chiefly Hungarian State Railway employees and, to some extent, postal services employees who had left Croatia, Bosnia, or Fiume because of the advances of the Serbian and French army, uncertainty caused by revolutionary and national movements, or simply straightforward looting. In 1910, the Hungarian State Railways and other railway companies had nearly 110,000 employees.9 The relationship between railways and nation building deserves a separate study, but the Hungarian State Railway was definitely one of the symbols of Hungarian state authority in the areas where non-Hungarian ethnic groups dominated. From the last days of October 1918, Hungarian railway employees arrived by the dozens and, then, by the hundreds to cities close to the southern borders of post-Trianon Hungary, such as Gyékényes, Nagykanizsa, Csurgó, Murakeresztúr, Barcs, Pécs, and Szeged.10 The directorate of the State Railway in Budapest experimented with local solutions and ordered station managements to find employment for the people who were arriving. However, it soon became apparent that local station managers were unable to do this even at the largest junctures. There were simply not enough posts. At first, railways, just like other state-owned companies and state organs, encouraged their employees to hold out and allowed them to swear allegiance to the new states. Then, it allowed them to leave, only later to reverse the policy and subsequently, encourage employees to stay at their posts until the spring of 1919.11 Contradictory orders frequently figured as explanations in applications submitted by railway employees for compensation after 1919. One applicant, for instance, made the following complaint:

It is natural that, as in all things, the railway institution is the last to help its robbed emigre employees. While superiors, such as leisurely sheriffs and public notaries who grew fat during the war, do not fail to receive aid on time, it is odd that while we had little joy in the war and our supplies (compared to civil servants) were insufficient beyond measure, … we are the ones who are at the end of the list in receiving aid. […] Considering that our Directorate and Management ordered us to stay at our posts and thus, partially, caused our misery, we now ask the Directorate to differentiate us from those who were more fortunate and left with their belongings.12

The quote points to a certain competition among branches. The case of railway employees was dealt with at the company level. Initially, the Railway Syndicate was the authority responsible for refugee issues at the largest state owned company, and beginning at the end of 1919, the “Central Authority for Issues of Hungarian State Railway Refugees” played this role. Refugees could receive a few hundred Korona cash aid and possibly be sent to a new work station, but many of them would be reassigned to stations which were now on “the other side of the border,” such as Kolozsvár (Cluj in Romania), Szabadka (Subotica in Serbia), or Nagyvárad (Oradea in Romania), within weeks or months, which meant that they had to leave again. In late 1918, the management of the Hungarian State Railways began to assess which of their employees would remain employed in the new states. It is somewhat surprising that, despite chaotic conditions, among the declarations that were sent to Budapest about the willingness to be employed in those weeks we find documents written in both Croatian and Hungarian, and the names, which were from several different languages, were written in a diverse variety of ways. This indicates that the decision to stay or leave was not necessarily a question of ethnicity or national identity, at least not in the first period of state succession.13

At the ministry level, the Ministry of Interior appointed Pál Hegymegi Kiss, who would become a noted politician of the opposition in the interwar period, as Commissioner responsible for arranging accommodation for sheriffs and notaries, and he was also given responsibility for school teachers and the staffs of museums. While leaders at the university in Kolozsvár (Cluj) and Pozsony (Bratislava) decided to stay, professors and students of the forestry and mining college at Selmecbánya (Banska Stiavnica, in present-day Slovakia) left for Budapest and, subsequently, for Sopron.14 Crossing the mountain pass in winter and the act of leaving presented as something resembling an expedition from a periphery to the interior became part of the legendry of the institution, which still exists. However, the migration of the college was also the end of a prolonged debate in Hungarian educational policy, so professors arriving in Sopron received extra benefits that other fugitive civil servants did not have access to. This situation led to tensions and competition for the title of victim.15

Refugees kept continued arriving during the period of the Soviet Republic of Hungary, which lasted from March until August 1, 1919. Pauses due to military activity and border blockades were temporary. After the fall of the communist experiment, the new anti-revolutionary administration created the Transylvanian Department of the Office of Preparation for Peace Treaty Negotiations, which was explicitly tasked with providing aid for refugees from Transylvania. There were civilian organizations that tried to cover other regions (the Szepesi Szövetség or “Szepes Alliance,” the Területvédő Liga or “Territorial Defense League,” the Felvidéki Liga or “Upper Country League,” and the Délvidéki Liga or “Southern Country League”). In April 1920, i.e. relatively late, the government finally set up the National Office for Refugees (Országos Menekültügyi Hivatal – OMH) and the National Council of Refugee Issues, which was its advisory and supervisory body. The head of the council was István Bethlen, who would later become prime minister and who was among the most influential politicians in Hungary in the interwar period, while the head of the office was a refugee aristocrat and former prefect, Emil Petrichevich-Horváth (1881–1945). Transylvanians had a marked presence throughout the lifetime of these institutions. Initially, the office worked within the framework of the Office for Preparation for Peace Treaty Negotiations, but shortly became directly subordinated to the Office of the Prime Minister. Beginning in 1922, it was part of the Ministry for Labor and Welfare, and the head of the office was a state secretary until the institution was closed in 1924.

The papers of the office are lost, probably destroyed by fire during the battle of Budapest in 1944–45. Since then, scholarship on refugees has relied chiefly on a single source, the office’s own official record. However, these data should be treated with caution.16 OMH dealt with a range of issues, in addition to providing direct aid (clothes, cash, and coal) for refugees. It ran soup kitchens, organized re-training courses, provided legal counselling services, coordinated construction projects, and organized recreational holidays for children. It also established check points check newly arriving migrants, especially at the more important railway junctures which were also border stations.17 The explanation for this lay in the fact that, after the Treaty of Trianon had been signed on June 4, 1920, the Hungarian state faced the reality that the rate of immigration (290,000 refugees by the end of 1920) could not be sustained. In September 1920, Bethlen was very firmly in favor of stopping the flow, that is, immigration. In his view, 70 percent of the 300–500 refugees who were arriving daily were not really refugees, but people opting for citizenship, which they would only be able to do after the treaty had been ratified, which did not take place until November 1920. Bethlen felt that the attempt by these refugees to resettle in Hungary for reasons of personal economic interest “fundamentally threatened Hungarian national interests,” because it lessened the proportion of Hungarians in the lost territories, which would have been the basis for revision of the treaty). As Bethlen wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Pál Teleki in September 1920,

the majority of the émigrés do not have sufficient reason to emigrate and do so in hope of finding easy employment […] This way, in Transylvania and in the southern areas, houses which had been inhabited by Hungarians become empty, the number of Hungarians living in the cities is shrinking, and they are being replaced by a wave of foreign elements. Leaving this process without intervention would be a threat to the nation.18

In October 1920, Teleki adopted Bethlen’s point of view (they were distantly related and both had family roots and lands in Transylvania) and ordered outposts to be set up to control and limit immigration. Teleki voiced his opinion publicly and used wording that was almost identical to Bethlen’s. In addition to the idea of a “threat to the nation” and the urban dimensions of flight (i.e. the Hungarian population decreasing in towns and cities), he also mentioned the crisis of housing and damage to private property:

The rapid increase of the number of refugee officers fleeing from occupied territories is a national threat. We cannot push citizens out of their homes to provide housing for refugees. Doing so would be close to Bolshevism. […] It is an unpatriotic act to flee if they not forced to leave but only do so because they have sold their property in Sokols, Lei, or Dinar and they even pay to be expelled.19

His words caused considerable uproar in some groups of refugee officials and on the political far right,20 though they also caused echoes in other circles. The owner of a house expressed his anger with a refugee magistrate from Arad (Arad, Romania) when the refugee was allotted a portion of the property:

on seeing the order, he loudly protested against letting the property pass and stated that he didn’t build a villa for refugees to live in it! We should have stayed where we were, did we think that ham grows by the side of the road in Budapest? We are worse than the communists were, since they spared his villa, but we take it by force.21

The government did not think legal regulation was sufficient to tackle immigration, and it occasionally set up a border blockade (for example during the summer and early autumn of 1921). In such periods, no refugees were received mainly out of concern for the number of railway wagons needed during harvest. The government was firmly convinced that wagons that would have been used to transport and, perhaps, accommodate refugees were essential for the success of the operations related to harvest. In 1921, because of these policies, the number of migrants fell to one fifth of what it had been in 1920, and the total number in 1922 was 80 percent of the figure of 1921. In 1923, 9,043 people immigrated (or fled) to Hungary, while in 1924 this number had dropped to under 1,000.22 We do not have detailed statistics about their geographical location, such as place of departure and place of arrival. A recently released database about more than 15,000 refugees from the period (www.trianon100.hu/menekultek) shows an overrepresentation of urban migrants (coming from an urban milieu in the territories annexed by the successor states and arriving to cities, in particular Budapest, in postwar Hungary. However, this database is quite fragmented, and some groups (such as railway workers) may be overrepresented, so the results should be treated with caution. The reluctance of the government to accept all expellees, returnees, or “person moving in” (the Hungarian term used at the time was beköltöző ) was probably motivated by fear of a “third wave” of revolutions led by distressed middle-class refugees whose loss of prestige and search for proper lodging would lead to clashes with the authorities at the beginning of the 1920s.23

Wagons and Barracks

The government constantly feared that refugees would become a source of social unrest and that this group, which for the most part had belonged to the middle class in the pre-war societies in which they had lived, would become the engine of a new wave of revolution. It is clear from statistics that the authorities did their best to keep the most visible elements, those who lived in wagons, away from the capital, which had already borne witness to several revolutions, occupation by a foreign army, and other traumatic upheavals in 1918–1919. Although these people and the conditions in which they lived became symbols for the suffering of post-Trianon Hungary, hardly more than 12–14 percent of them lived in wagons for extended periods of time. It can also be established that a maximum of 20,000 people lived in railway cars parked at railway junctures or side tracks at any one point of time. A family was usually allotted two wagons. They kept their furniture in one of them and lived in the other one. These wagons were not suitable for extended habitation (for instance, they could not be properly heated), and hygienic conditions became unbearable around them, as there was no running water and some of the families had domestic animals. Diseases and epidemics soon broke out, and there were many accidents. The latter chiefly affected children who played around the railway lines. Statistics allow us to track the efforts of the government to distribute wagon dwellers throughout the country and limit their numbers in the capital. In early 1921, county prefects along the borders complained in vain, asking the government to find places somewhere else for the refugees.24 When statistical records began to be kept in October 1920, there were a recorded 1,540 wagons in Budapest with 3,840 people living in them, while outside the capital there were 4,137 wagons with 16,500 inhabitants. Subsequently, in Budapest, the number of wagon dwellers quickly declined until the spring of 1921, but this number began to grow again, reaching a peak in September 1921. In the second wave, the number of wagon dwellers dropped below 1,000 in September 1922, and a year later, there were less than 300 people living in such conditions. Newspapers in the capital triumphantly reported that there were no more wagon dwellers.25

Table 2. Changes in the number of wagon dwellers in Budapest and in the countryside

The decline in these figures was much slower outside the capital. There were several examples when railway stations in villages (for example Mórágy, Almásfüzitő, and Kecel) also received wagons with refugee families living in them.26 This way, however, the sight of refugees became more familiar to people across the country, and the unpleasant conditions in which they lived served as a poignant illustration of the consequences of the Treaty of Trianon even in small communities. While wagon dwellers became symbols of the misery of the country and the tragedy of the Treaty of Trianon, newspapers hardly mentioned them after 1924–1925. Although in the mid-1920s, papers reported several times that “the last wagon dweller” had moved into proper housing, there nonetheless remained refuges who continued to live in wagons, temporary shelters and barracks. The wagon dwellers’ suffering became part of a narrative of suffering which followed the pattern of the Stations of the Cross and drew a parallel between the Crucifixion of Jesus and the fate of Hungary. It is a telling detail that the Jewish press in Hungary partially endorsed this view. At the same time, the papers hardly mentioned the multitudes of Jewish refugees.27

Though wagon dwellers hardly made up one-seventh of all refugees, initially they were the subject of disproportionate attention (though interest in their plight had completely dwindled by 1924). Those that lived in barracks, former army hospital buildings, and schools dramatically outnumbered the wagon dwellers, but they did not become symbols of the postwar fate of the country to the same extent. This overrepresentation of the wagon dwellers in the imagery concerning the refugees could be explained by the fact that their conditions provided an apt and pithy image of the decline of the middle classes after the war, and the wagon itself became a symbol.28

Although the government and local authorities tried to facilitate the settlement of refugees with programs for small flat construction and by creating residential colonies, if one considers the number of flats completed in the first half of the 1920s, this intervention was hardly efficient or sufficient.29 More research is needed to determine how Hungarian society absorbed more than 100,000 refugees (or 400,000 if we include family members) who were mostly from middle class backgrounds and who had relatively high expectations when it came to living standards and material conditions. (There are countless examples of middle class refugees refusing to accept one-room apartments offered to them by municipalities, as they contended that these dwellings were of a “proletarian type.”30) Based on randomized analysis of data, by the 1930s, the number of refugees sharply dropped in the barracks that had been built for them, and they were replaced by the urban poor.31 One possible explanation for this is that refugees might have built houses drawing on their own resources. One such example is the St. Emeric Suburb (Szent Imre Kertváros), which lay beyond the boundaries of Budapest at the time. The community, which consisted primarly of former civil servants, struggled for ten years for the right to move to their new homes. The cross erected in the central square, which was named Hargita (a mountain range in Transylvania and also the name of a county in Transylvania), reminded the 280 owners of the Treaty of Trianon, as did the street names, decorations, and the designs of some of the houses.32

Institutions

Apart from futile initiatives, such as the launching of the so-called Székely National Party in 1920–21, the refugees did not appear as political force. After June 1921, the Bethlen government banned associations which openly irredentist views, such as defense leagues and relocated/expelled municipal authorities formed in Hungary (menekült törvényhatóságok) and associations that formed on a territorial basis and had territorial revision in their articles of association.33 These measures created a serious limitation to ability of refugees to give expression to their interests through civil bodies. A centralized institutional setting funded Hungarian associations across the border in a covert way, but until the formation of Revíziós Liga (League for Revision) in 1927, only those organizations were allowed to exist that organized activities that did not go beyond reminding members of their common cultural heritage. Yet, the orientation of these organizations was not in doubt: the organizations that operated in areas that were outside of the territories reannexed between 1938–41 quickly dissolved. The remainder of the associations functioned under close government control: the papers of the Prime Minister’s Office (Department of Nationalities and Minorities) and those of the Ministry of Home Affairs offer proof of the strict surveillance under which the activities of every refugee organization were kept. The first exercised its influence by granting or retaining subsidies, while the latter used the means of legal controls.

Being a refugee had importance in individual career paths. Almanacs kept by the Parliament of the time clearly illustrate that having come from one of the lost territories, having suffered the experience of flight, or having played an active role in an irredentist organization were assets in politics. These experiences complemented the “Good Hungarian, Good Patriot” image even in cases of politicians who had little to do with Transylvania. They did not however, become a basis of group formation.

Some refugee communities developed strategies with which to address the new circumstances. The migrants from Szepesség/Zips/Spiš often had German origins, and they used their associations as a kind of network of pressure/interest groups targeting pensions, jobs, and benefits. The pattern of migration among intellectuals of the Szepes region, which had been a palpable tendency since the nineteenth century, remained an observable trend, as did attachment to ethno-regional identities and the maintenance of ties to the homeland. These ties were nurtured through organized tours, regular exchange of information, and organized holidays for children.34 The associations around the much larger group of people who had left eastern Transylvania and especially the Association of Székely University and College Students (SZEFHE) and the network of associations around it had a different strategy. They did not build a network of influence. Instead, they sought to act in a Messianic way and integrate elements of Székely cultural heritage (military borderland identity, free peasant community, mythical Hun origins) into the national canon in order to transform Hungarian society, regardless of whether change came from radical Left or radical Right. One of the central figures put their mission in the following way: “I absolutely believe in Transylvania. I believe that all light, health, talent, good, beauty, and moral power comes from there. If Hungarians can still be saved, this can only be done via Transylvania.”35 This presence proved so powerful that it survived decades of state socialism. The revival in the post-1990 era of the Székely Anthem and a runic script allegedly used well before Hungarians adopted the Latin alphabet is partially a sign of the success of their and their successors’ efforts.36 The Zipser and the Székely refugee community had pronounced contours and defined itself vis-à-vis the state. While the first wished to use state infrastructure to promote their individual and group level goals and to protect cultural heritage, the second wished to integrate this heritage into the national canon.

Between 1918 and 1924, alongside people and artifacts, institutions were also relocated to a new country. Professors and students at the university of Kolozsvár (Cluj) and Pozsony (Bratislava) came to Budapest and, subsequently, to Szeged and Pécs, where their successors operate to this day. The Forestry and Mining College found its new home in Sopron, and the law schools of Máramarossziget and Eperjes also moved to Hungary. Although these individual histories are well explored, the question of institutional level flight has hardly been made the subject of study, and the comparative studies of policies towards universities are not complete in their scope or framework.37 From the perspective of the broader context, it is worth noting that the leadership of the universities initially adopted a strict legalistic point of view at the time of the political changeover and tried to continue working at their locations until they were forced to leave in 1919. Some of the institutions and the more specialized training institution in Selmecbánya found their place, since the development of universities was a matter of state policy in the 1920s. Institutions that did not fit the prevailing concept, however, barely survived or lost state subsidies and had to close down. I am thinking, for instance, of law schools whose curricula did not harmonize with the state’s concept of development.

Images and Imagination

If we look at remembrance of flight and repatriation, we find a picture that is more complex than the picture of victimhood. It is useful to consider memoirs written between the second half of 1920s and the 1980s about experiences of flight between 1918 and 1924.38 I considered it important, from a methodological point of view, to use memoirs that form a control group. I identified three memoir writers who hesitated and eventually chose remain in the lands of their birth. Their motivations are at least as telling about the circumstances of repatriation as the writings of those who left.

The individuals who decided to stay did not adopt a heroic pose (“loyalty to Transylvania”) when making this decision. Their motivations were fear of material uncertainty, a rejection or fear of the ideology of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, or fear of the so-called white terror. The feature that the writings of those who left and those that stayed have in common is strong referentiality. None of them used arguments that stand on their own. Arguments that might well be accepted as reasonable explanations for the decision to leave would include fear for one’s life or the desire not to become part of a national minority living in a new nation state. Instead, the memoir writers made references to more specific details of their individual circumstances. For instance, they would mention the advice given by a pastor, or they would mention the desire to free themselves from someone they despised. They also mentioned having lost their jobs or having been betrayed by (Hungarian) colleagues. In some cases, such as that of László Ravasz (a Calvinist preacher who was born in Transylvania and who emerged as a prominent representative of the Calvinist Church in the interwar period), there was even reference to a divine order. It is even more puzzling that the use of references to external persons or circumstances is independent of political regimes. It is just as typical of memoirs produced in the 1930s as it is of those written after 1947–48, i.e. in communist Hungary. The memoirs suggest that their authors felt the reasons for the decision to leave were not self-evident or understandable in the eyes of others. There was a need for one more explanation in the argument. The other feature that stands out is that those who went to Hungary adjusted to an expected mode of speaking. Memoir authors whose writings did not fit the prevailing ideological currents stayed and died outside of post-Trianon Hungary. One could mention Farkas Gyalui, the director of the library in Kolozsvár, who felt like vomiting when he thought of Mihály Károlyi, the communists, the anti-Semitism of the post-1920 regime, and the people he regarded “Hungarians in word only,” i.e. those who had left the land of their birth and resettled in Trianon Hungary.39

The images of refugees in works of literature are no less loaded. No great novels were written about the plights of the refugees, and refugees often did not recognize themselves in the works that were produced. Zoltán Szitnyai (1893–1978) was a journalist and a writer whose novels were frequently published in the interwar period. Since he was born in Selmecbánya/Banska Stiavnica, his works often revolved around the city and the people who left for Trianon Hungary. In his novel Hodinai Hodinák (“Árpád from Hodina,” 1936), some of the expelled Hungarians living in Budapest drew up lists of alleged traitors, in their eyes, those who remained and continued to maintain the pre-war patriarchal world. They were more like merry tourists: their behavior did not reflect any suffering or pain. Szitnyai used the same framework in his work about the association of refugees that was published in Kassa (Kosice) in the early 1930s (Szeptemberi majális or “May Day in September”). The author/observer was critical of the loftiness and emptiness of the leaders and members of the association and the fawning attitudes that they exhibited on the tenth anniversary of the founding of the association. They were looking forward to seeing a minister who had been sent to see them, and they all hoped that their requests would enjoy the support of the influential politician. Lajos Zilahy (1891–1974) was one of the best-selling authors of interwar Hungary. His novel Földönfutó város (“Beggar Town”), which was published in 1939, was not one of his major successes. It builds on experience he gained during his work as a journalist, and it offers a (man’s perception of a) female perspective on the society of refugees. It is the story of a family falling apart. Following the death of her husband, the widow decides to repatriate and become a wagon dweller. Although the novel has a surprisingly tolerant tone (it does not contain anti-Semitic formulas and it addresses taboos such as homosexuality), it is not optimistic in its final judgement: emigration, moral degradation, and human pettiness and the ill-will of refugee society provide an allegorical framework for the fate of the family. The mother saves her new love from the police, but her children leave her, and it seems unlikely that her new relationship will last.

Addressing the plights of refugees in the tradition crafted by memoirs and literary works was burdensome, and this may explain why their stories remain largely untold in Hungary. Under pressure from official and public discourse, these narratives were distorted and used to legitimize flight. The fact that these stories have gone untold has constituted a barrier to the memory of the community, and it has prevented this memory from being integrated into the larger national narrative of victimhood.

Conclusion

One can speak of the refugee policy of the Hungarian state in its true sense from the end of 1919, when the state set up certain institutions to manage the flow of immigrants arriving in the country and initiated and coordinated welfare efforts. This approach replaced earlier approaches that were used in a time of flight in 1916. Beginning in the second half of 1920, the government focused on drastically cutting back the number of new arrivals. They were motivated by concern for public order and hypothetical revision of the peace treaty in the future, rather than by humanitarian considerations. State companies, Churches, and state institutions or local municipalities had different and inconsistent policies. The latter used the refugee issue in their battles for material resources, in fights against control from center of the state, and in internal political battles. With the closure of the National Office for Refugees, the problems faced by immigrants disappeared from public view and, except for a few marked groups (Zipsers and Székelys), refugees were not able to represent themselves in the public or political spheres. Refugees not only had to face limitations imposed on them by government policies, but also had to grapple with the obstacles which arose because of the simple fact that many people in the communities in which they sought to settle saw them as competitors for available resources, so their cause did not evolve into a national outcry. Their flight forced them to justify their decisions and redefine their identities. Although state efforts were neither satisfactory nor consistent, Hungarian society finally integrated and absorbed this predominantly middle-class crowd of refugees, but the details (the technical details and networks) of this integration should be subjected to further study. In this sense, integration was a success story, though not thanks to the state. However, in many cases, the cost of success was silence.

Archival Sources

Fővárosi Szabó Ervin Könyvtár Kézirattár [Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library, Manuscript Department]

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary] (MNL OL)

K26 Miniszterelnökségi Levéltár [Prime Minister’s Office]

Z1610 Gazdasági Levéltár, Magyar Államvasutak Igazgatósága [Papers of

MÁV directorate]

Országos Széchényi Könyvtár Kézirattár [Manuscripts of National Széchényi Library] (OSZKK)

Quart Hung. 4313 Dezső Ottrubay Vitéz: “Visszaemlékezés az 1914–1918. világháborúra” [Remembering the World War between 1914–1918], “Háború utáni nehéz évek” [Hard years after the war]

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