26 CHAPTER 1
László’s social interest was inherited by his former students such as József
Szentpéteri, who studied various aspects of Avar social history. The methods of
Gyula László were applied in his study of the cemetery of Želovce (Slovakia), in
which Szentpéteri distinguished three zones and interpreted them as centre,
right and left wing, using military terminology.142 Three ‘social’ groups were
identified from the cemetery based on artefact combinations: the ornamented
belt and weapons were regarded as signs of free men (based on this assump-
tion, the proportion of free men and their dependants had a ratio of 1:2). He
identified the richest burial of the central group with the burial of a kinship
leader, and those of the wing leaders heading extended families.143 He fol-
lowed Gyula László’s preconceptions rigidly without querying their theoretical
basis. However, this study had some forward-looking features: it was the first
to use age groups of the deceased and the results of anthropological investi-
gations for social analysis.144 This study applied the social model created by
Gyula László in the 1940s without changes, rendering it anachronistic at the
time of its publication.
Following this first attempt József Szentpéteri wrote his Candidate thesis
on the social interpretation of Avar-age weapon burials using similar methods
for the whole Carpathian Basin. He compiled a huge database of burials with
weapons, ornamented belts and horses which were used to analyse combina-
tions using quantitative statistical methods. On the basis of his detailed charts
he tried to model a social pyramid using the hypothetical gold – silver – copper
alloy order and combinations of weapons, belts and horses.145
Slovakian scholarship was at the forefront of research on Late Avar burials
with weapons. Jozef Zábojnik studied those weapons of western origin from
Avar-age burials.146 Later he analysed the social structure of the Northern
periphery of the Avar Qaganate with analyses of horizontal stratigraphy of
cemeteries, and applying his chronology based on the seriation of Late Avar
belt sets.147 Zábojník mainly used quantitative statistical methods for analysing
142 Szentpéteri’s system (1985, 82) is identical with László’s analysis on the cemeteries of
Győr–Téglavető and Csúny (Bratislava–Čunovo). This method was originally used in the
examination of Early Hungarian cemeteries. (László 1944; for its use in Avar Age: László
1955, 53–85; 125–130).
143 Szentpéteri 1985, 89.
144 Szentpéteri 1986, 148–149. According to his observation, hair-clips (used by male individu-
als) only occured in burials of elder men.
145 Szentpéteri 1993, 186–189.
146 Zábojník 1978, 193–214. The study of Frauke Stein (1968, 233–242) on Avar – Merovingian
contact had a great impact on his work.
147 Zábojník 1991, 219–321.