16 CHAPTER 1
2.3 Ethnic Interpretations and Questions of Origin
The study of early medieval archaeology in Central and Eastern Europe is fun-
damentally oriented towards ethnic questions, largely as a result of a national-
ist–romantic historical approach rooted in 19th century European thought.76
The claim for identification of various ethnic groups by means of archaeologi-
cal practice was already a significant part of the beginnings of ‘Avar archae-
ology’ as defined by Ferenc Pulszky.77 Subsequently this approach focussed
not on the identification of ‘Avars’ themselves but on minor ethnic groups of
various origin living in the ‘Avar Qaganate’ according to written sources such
as Gepids, Kutrigurs, Onogurs and Slavs. This approach used burial customs,
multi-part belt sets and armament as distinguishing attributes. In what fol-
lows, only the ethnic theories related to weaponry and burials with weapons
will be discussed.
The identification of the Kutrigurs, regarded as the Eastern European com-
ponent of the Avars, was attempted by using a particular burial or sacrifice
custom in which a special spearhead type played a significant role. The so-
called ‘pyre theory’ was constructed by Dezső Csallány using the complex of
Bácsújfalu as evidence. Supposed funeral pyres served for the identification
of Kutrigurs among the Early Avar population: according to this theory the
Kutrigurs burnt the horse, harness and weapons of the deceased and depos-
ited the remains in a separate pit near the burial. Csallány linked reed-shaped
spearheads decorated with grid-patterned rings to this ethnic group and listed
them in his study of the Kutrigurs.78
While Csallány identified ‘funeral pyres’ with the Eastern European com-
ponent (Kutrigurs) of the Avars, Ilona Kovrig provided a fundamentally differ-
ent interpretation of the same phenomenon, arguing that iron artefacts found
in these complexes were of good ‘quality’ because they were manufactured in
Inner Asia.79 Following Kovrig’s arguments István Bóna interpreted these com-
plexes as ‘sacrifices’ known from Inner Asian Turkic sites as ‘тайник’ (cache),
while he explained the good preservation of stirrups and lances as a product
of secondary burning.80 These ‘funeral sacrifices’ were later studied together
76 The best summaries of the problem: Brather 2000, 141–149; Brather 2004a.
77 Ferenc Pulszky (1874) identified the archaeological heritage of the Avars by means of
coin-dated burials, but he was the first who identified the early Hungarian archaeological
material, too (Pulszky 1891). On his role in Hungarian archaeology: Langó 2007, 79–83.
78 Csallány 1953, 133–137.
79 Kovrig 1955a, 30–44.
80 Bóna 1971a, 240 (24); Bóna 1980, 47–48.