Introduction 21
to light108 suggesting that the chronology of several burials formerly dated to
the first half of the 6th century should be reconsidered.
Research on Byzantine influences on the Avar archaeological culture is not
of ethnic character; however, its study is crucial for the understanding of the
foreign relations of the Avars, and has attracted particular attention from the
beginning, although it became the focus of international archaeology only
more recently. During the first half of the 1990s a considerable change occured
as a consequence of the approach of Csanád Bálint and Falko Daim, who both
emphasised the Byzantine roots of several phenomena in Avar material cul-
ture. The attention of Csanád Bálint turned to this Byzantine element during
the analysis of the burial from Üch Tepe (Azerbaijan) which shed new light on
several elements of the Early Avar material culture including the origin of the
ornamented belt109 and sabre.110
Similarly, Falko Daim also turned his attention towards the Byzantine roots
of the Avar culture,111 as a consequnce of his three-column model (1. shape,
decoration, motives, style, 2. manufacturing techniques, 3. material). In his
study he focused on the Byzantine influence on the multi-part belt sets of Late
Avar period (8th–9th centuries),112 later he put the Avar material culture into a
broader European context.113 Following him, Jozef Zábojník studied Late Avar
belt sets of Byzantine origin from Slovakia.114
Éva Garam begun studying artefacts of Byzantine origin from Avar buri-
als during the 1980s,115 and she summarised these studies in a monograph
which is the first comprehensive synthesis of Byzantine influences on Avar
material culture.116 The aforementioned studies inspired further research on
Mediterranean contacts of the early medieval Carpathian Basin.
108 http://www.mnm.hu/Upload/doc/mnm_sajtoanyag_tiszaroff.pdf.
109 On the supposed Byzantine origin of the multi-part belt sets: Bálint 1992, 411–415; Bálint
1995a, 203–221; Bálint 2000, 99–163.
110 Bálint 1992, 338–343; Bálint 1995a, 64–73.
111 Falko Daim first studied the origin of the griffon motive popular during the 8th century
(Daim 1990, 273–304).
112 Daim 2000, 77–204.
113 Daim 2003, 463–570.
114 Zábojník 2000, 327–365.
115 Éva Garam studied the brooch of Dunapataj (Garam 1989, 137–153), the pectoral jew-
elry costume of Byzantine origin (Garam 1991d, 151–179), the disc-brooches characteris-
tic to the local Roman population of Keszthely culture (Garam 1993b, 99–134) and the
Byzantine belt sets (Garam 1999/2000, 379–391).
116 Garam 2001.