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CHAPTER 7
Armament and Society
1 Deposition of Weapons in Burials—Cemeteries and Regional
Differences
Most of the studied polearms and edged weapons were found in burials. The
exceptions are spearheads found in ‘sacrificial complexes’ together with ele-
ments of horse-harness (16 sites, 22 spearheads). These complexes are mostly
without any archaeological observations therefore in the following statistics
they will be presented as stray finds. As a result the study of the deposition
of weapons in graves and their position in the burial is indispensable for the
research on social significance of these artefacts.
The deposition of weapons depends on various factors, including their size
and burial custom, as well as magic and beliefs of the community arranging
the funeral like arrowheads and armour-lamellae from female and child buri-
als, which were probably used as amulets showing that the weapon burial rite
was basically a symbolic one, and in most of cases buried weapons did not
serve their original function.
The patterns of weapon deposition in burials differ largely by regions once
inhabited by the Avars, therefore some geographical notes will be made. The
area of Carpathin Basin is 300,000 km2 only two thrids of which (around
150,000 km2) were populated by the Avars. In what follows, distribution of both
polearms and edged weapons will be discussed in five regions: Transdanubia,
Danube – Tisza interfluve, Transtisia, Transylvania and northwestern periph-
ery (including Southwestern Slovakia, Vienna Basin and Lower Austria, see
map 1). The area of all these regions covers about 50,000 km2.
Polearms and edged weapons were found in 421 sites, 85 of them are stray
finds (including sacrificial complexes without archaeological research) and
336 of them are cemeteries. Most of these sites are only small excavated parts
of larger cemeteries, in 48 cases only one grave was excavated, while in 54 cases
less than ten burials.
