148 CHAPTER 2
likely it can be interpreted as the application of a traditional image type.
A similar mounted warrior was represented on a cast bronze strap-end from
the 2nd cemetery at Bánhalom–Czebe puszta II. víztároló, the warrior is
throwing a javelin or thrusting a Simurgh with a lance in this representation.276
Ján Dekan regarded Sassanian and Coptic art as the antecedents of these
Late Avar representations of mounted warriors.277 These analogies, however,
seem to be somewhat distant. It is important to remember the Byzantine ico-
nography of Saint George (or Bellerophon) because his lance, similar to Avar
representations, points downwards.278
The 2nd jar of the Nagyszentmiklós treasure has considerable significance
amongst such representations, where a rhombic pierced spearhead with flag
was depicted in the hand of the glorious leader.279 Csanád Bálint compared it
with the openwork spearheads of the Late phase from Transylvania (like Teiuş),
and drew attention to the solidus of Tiberius III (698–705) on which a similar
spearhead was depicted.280 A similar triangular spearhead with pierced blade
was found in grave No. 48 at Košice–Šebastovce,281 dated to the second half
of the 8th century, similar to the jar of the Nagyszentmiklós treasure.282 This
image type is very different from the former three representations, since in this
case the spear is positioned on the right shoulder.
Representations of flagged spears are well known from Eurasian nomads,
and Katalin U. Kőhalmi has studied their distribution on the steppes.283 Flagged
spears are well known from Bulgaria,284 Altay,285 China,286 Volga region,287 in
Italy288 and Byzantium, and therefore it can be regarded as a wide-spread
phenomenon.
276 Kaposvári – Szabó 1956; Fettich 1990; Fancsalszky 2007, Pl. 55.
277 Dekan 1972, 434.
278 Csanád Bálint (2004a, 361) firstly compared it with the iconography of the Saint George
representations (see Tóth 2005, 184–186).
279 Gschwantler 2002, 15; Bálint 2004a, 424.
280 Bálint 2004a, 364.
281 Budinský-Krička – Točík 1991, 14–15, Taf. II/1.
282 Bálint 2004a, 564.
283 Kőhalmi 1972, 115.
284 Veliki Preslav petroglyph: Iotov 2004, picture No. 37.
285 Appelgren-Kivalo 1931, Abb. 81, 93; Mavrodinov 1943, 115, fig. 74; Okladnikov 1951, 143–154;
Alföldi 1951, 132; Györffy 1959, 1. kép; Sovetova – Mukhareva 2005, 92–105.
286 On a Chinese wall painting from 701: Murals in the Tomb of Li Chung-jun of the Tang
Dynasty. Peking 1974. (cited by Bálint 2004a, 361).
287 On the bone saddle-mount of Shilovka: Bagautdinov – Bogachev – Zubov 1998, 184.
288 Grosse 1923/24; von Hessen 1971, 37–41.