Two Slavic Burial Mounds--photographer not known

The death of a close person and their consequent departure to the mysterious beyond have always evoked fear, anxiety as well as terror in members of each society in different periods of the development of human thinking. As a result, anything somehow connected with death has been dismissed from human social consciousness. Such a taboo attitude often restrained a more pragmatic way of thinking which considered death to be the second fundamental turning point in life of man, being thus in opposition to the first one - birth. The chance of getting as much information about the life in the Early Middle Ages and different activities of its members and groups considerably depends on the ability to look objectively at the wide variety of material obtained from burial grounds. In order to achieve such an objective look, burial grounds, in conformity with pre-Christian thinking will not be viewed as the final station of being. On the contrary, they will be seen as a station at which individuals change and carry on with their pilgrimage the same way as they did in their earthly life.

In general, archaeological material coming from burial grounds may provide a clear and complete picture of some aspects of life in society replenished with information about religious ideas, interethnic and social relations as well as objects of material culture used in everyday life, delicately set in a chronological frame. Worth mentioning is the fact that all the information about health conditions, characteristics of a physical appearance of individuals noticeable on anthropologic material, extended with some demographic indicators, tends to be bound to a particular person or community buried in a particular burial locality (Hanuliak 1990, 147). The mentioned possibilities may be however undesirably limited if the original basis of the archaeological material lacks a sufficient number of good quality data as it is for example in the case of graves marked by mounds. The presence of mounds in the Great Moravian period can be mostly found in upland partially forested regions of the western and central Slovakia, as well as in lowlands and uplands of eastern Slovakia. In spite of a considerable extension of such areas with dozens of sites and hundreds of expected grave mounds, we still obtain relatively little information from them. We are more or less able to map individual forms of burying, ways of putting corpses or their incarnated remains into graves, layout of graves and their surroundings, contents and value of a burial inventory. The observed characteristic features suggest that during the 9th and 10th century burial grounds served mostly for common people living in the mentioned areas of Slovakia, exploiting the given habitat and natural resources. The poor non-explicit burial inventory and the register of burial customs constantly halt the effort to get more out of the limited scale of information from burial grounds. Their low profit, in contrast to the hard work connected with their disclosure has a major share in relatively low significance of grave mounds. The prospect of changing the existing situation is fading away due to the fast decline of moulds hastened by a recent large scale building Dostál 1996, 17; Hanuliak 1984, 9 - 10; Štefanovièová 1996, 257).

Burial grounds with the so-called shallow graves provide a disproportionally wider and richer scale of information. Shallow graves can be recognized by low clay rows made of loosened soil. They dominate in flat, partially mildly undulated terrains of western Slovakia. Over 230 known sites with more than 3000 graves clearly illustrate the concentration of their occurrence. Their mapping will provide a picture of not only the density of the net of colonization but also its structure revealing some aspects of economical, administrative as well as military - defensive character. Material coming from shallow graves enables with a sufficient accuracy to define most important milestones of the Great Moravian period, as well as to characterize their material contents, and to emphasize the external quality of defined features. On the basis of the sources coming from three burial grounds it is possible to date the beginnings of Great Moravian necropolis to about the year 800 AD. The site in Boroviec (Staššíková - Štukovská 2000) is one of them, which furthermore is the only one to have even an earlier phase dating from the 8th century. There is no other site of which Great Moravian phase would, with its typical attributes, continually tie to the earlier phase from the period of Avars cagoulard. This finding can be considered to be one of the main arguments in favor of naming the whole collection of the discussed category of necropolis Great Moravian burial grounds or burial sites. Their beginning as well as major part of the extension of their use form a part of the Great Moravian period, even though some of them prevail in the 10th and 11th century. Circa the year 800 is thus considered to be a turning point (Bialeková 1996, 249 - 250). On one hand it is represented by the end of the latest phase of the late stage of Avars cagoulard burial grounds. On the other hand, it is characterized by the beginning of Great Moravian burial grounds. Necropoli as well as graves of the late Avars type are characterized by a considerable (up to 50%) reduction of their number. Their small groups, with the exception of one site, belong to disproportionaly larger and older burial areas (Zábojník 1995).

Burial grounds of the new cultural provenance are characterized by a gradually growing number of their occurrence. The three above mentioned earliest necropoli can be supplemented only by other five that were already in use in the first third of the 9th century, as well as some tens others dating from the second third of the 9th century. The seemingly low number might not be underestimating the real situation. It is impossible to overlook the fact that the formation of a new category of burial grounds was a result of the penetration of a miscellaneous cultural western influence into the late Avars period marked by an autochthonous crisis. Owing to that an unusual form of duality emerged in burial areas. This duality is on one hand manifested in the application of new principles which determined the exterior shape of necropoli (wider variety of site types, their location in the terrain, layout and the way of embedding graves, setting predominant azimuth of the location of graves). On the other hand, continually developing elements appear in the components of burial rituals as well. Some of them show a changed interior content, for example the way of laying the dead, application of anti vampire practices, interior decoration of graves made of wood or other material of organic origin. The scale of objects of burial inventory includes some samples from the series of everyday life objects, tools as well as objects of cult character. On their basis the assumption about the existence of their production base could be made. There were radical changes in the presence of female jewels as well as armaments. It is quite obvious that in such a short time determining principles of the new category of necropoli with a modified content of the earliest ones could not merged in such a massive number as in the later period. The burial ground in Ve¾ký Grob is a concrete model of a complicated assertion of new forms of burying the dead. The mentioned burial ground in Ve¾ký Grob represents a precious hybrid of necropolis dating from the period of Avars cagoulard and burial grounds of the Great Moravian type. Adding some of the discontinuous elements to these findings, we are likely to eliminate a high rate of synchronism of both culturally different groups of necropolis. It is possible that the given stage could in some parts of Slovakia take the form of indifferent chronological hiatus.

The new systemic approach to the evaluation of material from burial grounds enables us to divide the Great Moravian period into the Early and Late phases with the 60s´ of the 9th century being the cut off point. The Early phase (800 - 860) is characterized by above standard sizes of sepulchral hollows, their interior decorations made of wood or other material of organic origin. Furthermore, typical are also cases of reverse location of the buried individuals, oscillation of the course of the azimuth between west and east as well as a remarkable distance between graves. As far as the arrangement of upper extremities is concerned, the basic layout parallel with the body line is dominant. Preventive and posterior anti-vampire practices are rare too. Armaments were often laid next to male corpses. In many cases they included buckets, razors, reaping hooks and meat dishes. The determining components of female graves were objects of everyday use along with tools and objects of a cult character. Jewels were rare.

The end of production and usage of stirrups of Type III and IV is one of the crucial features used to determine the cut off point between the Early and Late phases (Ruttkay 1982, 177). Close connected to these is a whole variety of other typical objects laid into graves in the Early phase including characteristic elements of a burial ritual. In the Late phase of the Great Moravian period (860 - 915) distances between graves were shortened, their locality was unified, sizes reached average parameters. Interior wooden decorations were rare. The arrangement of upper extremities was dominated by cases of alternate right to left direction and by cases of both forearms laid on the pelvis. While preventive anti-vampire practices stagnated, their posterior forms grew in number. Except for rare cases, there were no armaments in graves. Even the scale of everyday life objects and tools as well as majority of samples of a cult character were reduced, the number of their occurrence decreased. The popularity of a wide collection of amulets was, however, growing. The moment of a passive penetration of relics of the East European provenance into burial material dating after circa 915 is considered to be the determining sign defining the end of this period. This date was confirmed by a repeatedly verified results of demographical statistical calculations from the given areas. The burial material lacks the source which would eliminate so far generally accepted opinion of continual prevalence of burial grounds into the first half of the 10th century, that is after the year 906, connected with the breakdown of the Great Moravian Empire (Steinhü bel 1996, 15). The mentioned continuity of using considerable collections of necropoli during the following period resulted in adding, to the existing two phases of the Great Moravian period, a third one called the post Great Moravian phase. The sizes of sepulchral hollows were below standard. The arrangement of upper extremities went through significant and extreme changes. Burial inventory showed a wider variety of objects from the East European provenance (originally referred to as Old Hungarian) dominated by female jewels. Their samples were mixed up with disappearing objects of autochthonous Slavic origin. Male graves with no inventory at all grew in number. More evidence proving continual use of burial grounds of the Great Moravian type up to the first half of the 10th century was obtained in the last decennium through a detailed study of available archaeological sources. From these collections ethnic indicators were selected decisively depicting series of other features. Despite of their changed forms in the post Great Moravian period there is no doubt about their connections with the autochthonous environment. The fact that the needed determining features came from the group of elements of a burial ritual was rather surprising. Their ability to positively describe the partial area was confirmed to have been unjustly ignored. In the past, on the contrary, generally accepted assumptions about objects of material culture, many a time served, by an inconsistent objective approach, as the basis for the creation of biased conclusions. One of these conclusions is for example a questionable opinion saying that jewels coming from outside the Carpathian provenance connected only with members of the Old Hungarian ethnic. Similarly, we must be skeptical about the exaggerated number of new coming ethnic group which members were supposed to have outnumbered the demographic composition of domestic post Great Moravian population. Similarly questionable is the theory of outrageous victorious occupation of the former eastern part of the Great Moravian State which forced the original inhabitants to flee to the northern parts, while the rest of the country was invaded and assimilated thus interrupting the continuity of the former autochthonous settlement (Szoke 1962; Gyö rffy 1960; 1970).

Penetration of objects from the East European provenance into burial ground sites, but not habitation, after the mid decennium of the 10th century, is to be viewed objectively. The inventory included mostly female jewels, occasionally items of clothing. These after some time started to be made even in domestic workshops where masters adopted the trade [sic] sortiment to new consumers’ demands and changed taste. Products of the Great Moravian provenance were, on the contrary, stopped being made after the abolishment of production infrastructure following the break down of the organizational state structure. Changes of this type, considered in the past as the proof of a physical extinction of the original Slavic population from the territory of Hungary (Hungarian zábor), were questioned by second hand pieces of Great Moravian objects laid in the post Great Moravian period into graves. Their parallel occurrence together with finds of the East European provenance confirmed the assumption about their successive take over and mastering by Slavic population as well as confirmed trouble free blending of objects from two different cultural ethnic backgrounds. It means that in a continual evolutional process one of the elements of cultural manifestation changed and that archaeological methods are capable of recording it. In theory, ethnic cultural specifications of Slavic ethic group underwent a change in the post Great Moravian period influenced by factors following the break up of the Great Moravian State. Some changes of ethnic cultural character of the autochthonous population concerned burial rituals as well. Its ethnic specific elements simply disappeared. The same process ran through the common classes of the Hungarian population. The parallel development of both trends led in the beginning of the 11th century to the new quality with homogeneous interior content without any ethnic specifications. The mentioned findings affirm that in the 10th century Slovakia went through a process of nonviolent acculturalization.

In the first half of the century ethnic cultural specifications of the Slovak community changed. In the process of this change both ethnic elements were accompanied by mutual convergence of differences in burial rituals. In the second half of the 10th century the evolution outgrew into the phase of mutual overlap of archaeologically recorded ethnic cultural features. Most convincing evidence concerning the components of the mentioned process is found in the material coming from 16 known burial grounds (Hanuliak 1992). The material represents various forms of cohabitation of members of Slavic and Hungarian ethnic groups coexisting on the basis of neighborhood and family relations (Hanuliak 1993a; 2000a; Encyklopédia; 1995, 32,124 - 125). From the series of the mentioned sites most valuable information was obtained from the burial ground in Èakajovce. It was made by people living from the beginning of the 9th century in a patronymic village like settlement north off Nitra’s neighborhood agglomeration. The Slavic origin of its inhabitants is indicated in the first written form of the name of the village (Cheka - Che(n)ka), as well as in typical objects of burial inventory and elements of burial ritual. The members of the autochthonous part of the population used to bury the dead during the earliest phase of the Great Moravian period in all groups of graves in the burial ground.

 The physical presence of the Hungarians among the inhabitants of Èakajovce is suggested by a wider variety of jewels and items of clothing of the East European provenance along with armaments and special forms of crockery. This group comprises 46 individuals picked on the basis of concentrated presence of the mentioned objects and layout of the upper extremities. Their graves were unevenly scattered among individual groups in the three burial ground zones. Two adult men were buried in the top zone; four children, five youngsters, nine women and two men in the middle zone; eight children, ten women and eight men were buried in the lower zone. From the location of the graves of autochthonous population it is possible to assume that the new coming ethnic group lived with the Slavic one in families and kinships (the top and the middle zones), in loose relations( middle and lower zones) and in individual possibly ethnically pure families (lower zone). Statistical data repeatedly confirmed the accuracy of the number of the selected Hungarian population. The data showed that during the first half of the 10th century, there were some 39 - 44 individuals living in Èakajovce. Considering the proportion of the both ethnic groups the integration of the minority into the Slavic population was likely to have been a quick one (Hanuliak - Rejholcová 1999, 102 - 105).

There is no doubt about the existence of Christianity, spreading in central areas of the Great Moravian Empire, in the first half of the 9th century. It is proved by both written and archaeological sources. Direct evidence comprises ornament leitmotivs as well as objects connected with the new religion together with more than 20 sacral objects (for example Vavøínek 1985, 215n; Štefanovièová 1990, 43n; Sedlák 1999, 77n). Nearby founded cemeteries reflect certain advancement in the effort of the Church to overcome the fear of dying and the life after with no physical needs. As a result in this place there were less protective purifying practices carried out and less objects of everyday use and tools were laid into graves. Completely different was the situation in villages playing a crucial role in the structure of the Great Moravian colonization. Traditional types of burial ground sites were still used in the country. New ones were located in places with good prophylactic factors such as sunlight, water and the distance from a habitat. As far as protective practices are concerned the anti-vampire ones reached a higher degree. Their preventive forms, performed at the funeral, were supposed to prevent the dead from leaving graves. To achieve that corpses were laid into graves in different sometimes more sometimes less recoiled positions. Posterior practices were used to cripple corpses completely or some of their important parts. Forms of both practices were performed only in extreme cases. Mainly when burial rituals did not seem to be effective enough to eliminate evil power of the dead and the chances of its abuse. In most cases it was enough to show respect to the dead, express sorrow over their death and provide adequate burial inventory (Hanuliak 1998).

Changes in some aspects, little by little observed during the late phase of the Great Moravian period, may be considered to be a slow assertion of new religious forms. The way of spreading religion prevented the actual significant expansion of Christianity. There was no consciousness civilized acceptance of the religion by large masses but a political act directed from the top aimed at the lower classes. Ethical or cultural values played no significant role. The contradiction in the conversion itself was much more serious. The conversion did not concern just the replacement of the familiar gods and sacral ceremonies for new ones but it concerned a complete change of understanding the whole system of values, living space and the meaning of life. In a pre-Christian system nature, work, everyday struggle for survival formed with the sacral sphere an integrated system. Inner principles of the system operated life cycle of the former society. Accepting Christianity led to changes only in the sacral sphere. The new religion arose fear of breaking off the successful running of several vital sections including health of people, their property, all components of economic performance. This fact was vital mainly in agricultural communities dependant on life giving natural cycle (Charvát 1987, 229 - 230; Tøeštík 1997, 297n).

A real threat of abolishing ancestral cult was another dreadful fear. Thinking of people closely connected with their ancestors would have to undertake serious changes. Spirits of christianed individuals placed in Christian paradise would not be able to contact their ancestors from the pagan beyond who kept their physical body after death. A low attraction of religious restrictions, being in discordance with former demonstrations of emotional self - indulgence common in various life situations, represented another obstacle. A considerable number of results of the analyses of the material coming from burial grounds indicate that this crisis affecting the sacral sphere of the pagan system might have resulted in continual changes. These changes were evoked by consequences of the feudalizing process which, via changes in economical and social relations, penetrated into all spheres of life. As a result, people were losing faith in pagandom and burial practices were losing their effect. Symbolic conception of objects from burial inventory emerged, frequency of objects laid into graves fell, the need to use amulets and more expressive prophylactic practices grew in number. The mentioned characteristics are typical of a specific phase in the development of religious conceptions marked as pagan-christian syncretism. Its nature is recorded in burial ground material. Besides a faster replacement of some components, we can also find a successive overlapping of nonfunctional pagan concepts and practices connected with them. In any case, the conversion to christianity from pagandom did not happen overnight. It was a process of christianization of the existing pagandom (Geary 1980, 112; Horváthová 1980, 135; Merhautová - Tøeštík 1984, 26; Hanuliak 1993b).

Interpretation of determining features of individual types of burial ground sites provides primary data concerning a complicated net of social relations. The frequency of their occurrence as well as the number of graves is different. One of the types is represented by an isolated grave, or at the very best a couple of graves not too far from each other. The reason for this way of burying of mainly adults remains unrevealed. Their great number suggest they represent a special type of a burial ground site, and not a beginning or a part of a large burial ground. The location of such graves indicates the dead could be strangers or suspects who died outside their home and could not thus be buried in the local public burial ground. They remind of cases of burials next to sacred trees, gardens, crossroads mentioned in Bøetislav’s restrictions from the beginning of the 11th century (Niederle 1916, 244).

Finding reasons for burying the dead right in the habitation aloof dwellings is a hard nut. Such graves, mostly shallow ones, are usually with no mutual connection just scattered round. This type is dominated by children’s graves. Adult graves of this type are characterized by various anti-vampire practices and a missing burial inventory. It seems that children and adults of inferior status within a community, with no close connections to members of that community, were buried that way. With some dead we cannot exclude cases of abilities to control evil forces and their abuse to disadvantage of the alive ones. Another way of nonstandard burying, along with the already mentioned ones, were cases when the dead were not buried in a grave but laid into habitation, mainly into bottom parts of deep store-houses. A different degree of irregularities concerning the arrangement of a trunk and the extremities is often accompanied by anti vampire practices of eliminating character.  A more detailed analysis of available sources leads to an assumption that this particular way of burying was used for extremely dangerous individuals when it was necessary to use such extreme defensive practices in order to eliminate their evil abilities.The above mentioned cases represent a group of nonstandard way of burying used in the Great Moravian society to protect themselves from dangerous individuals. Some representatives of this risky category were able to abuse evil forces causing harm to people’s health and property. Some were strangers who failed to integrate themselves into a particular society. Others could be people of inferior status, despised by the rest of a community for their behavior, way of life, violating manners (Hanuliak 1997; 1998). It is hard to say whether the use of nonstandard ways of burying depended on the degree of danger the dead were posing or whether the practices were used because they had been tested in the past and proven reliable.

 Regular burial grounds made of group burials of individuals with some kind of family relations provide a great deal of information concerning social relations in the Great Moravian period. A high frequency of their occurrence has a positive impact on getting a more complex picture which main results are indicated in the results of analyses. Important is also the fact that a vast majority of 126 known sites are placed in the country. Even this seemingly unified class of yeomen and occasional makers of simple objects and tools was characterized by unequal status among individual members of a family (Goetz 1987, 34n). Superior domination of a man over a woman, typical of the Middle Ages, was not, however, adequately displayed in material coming from burial grounds. It seems that the former society had no great interest in showing this kind of hierarchy explicitly. Signs of this inequality can only be found in the early phase of the Great Moravian period. They include bigger sizes of graves and more frequent wooden decoration. As far as objects are concerned male corpses were accompanied by armaments, razors, reaping hooks and meal side dishes. Female burial inventory was more modest, less valuable. In the course of time the value of male burial inventory fell, armaments and other accompanying subjects were disappearing. Female burial inventory on the contrary, via enlarging scale of jewels and their value, grew. Male graves with no inventory at all dominated in the expanding number of graves. Burial ground material, however, significantly reflects the age classification of buried individuals. Neither low nor inferior status of children is true (Slivka 1997). The situation changes with a growing age. Burial supplements, typical for a regular member of a community, appeared among children over the age of three or four. Their value gradually grew especially after having taken part in initial rituals necessary for their integration into the community. Judging by the value of burial supplements, a social status of men culminated between their adolescence and middle age. Women were highly rated in their late childhood, early womanhood. In both cases, the zenith is considerably influenced by reproductive abilities, working activity and with men by an ability to carry out a variety of military duties (Bednárik 1939, 74 - 75; Filová 1975, 969; Horváthová 1975, 990; Encyklopédia 1995, 54 - 56).

It is necessary to analyze the differences within an almost unified social class of countryside people in burial grounds. Its success depends on two conditions: an ability to select family members out of burial grounds and on the selection of the right criteria vital for defining value hierarchy of components of burial ground material. The first condition can be met only in cases of large and completely explored burial grounds. The second condition is influenced by findings in burial inventory of the dead. These specimen were used or worn in such a way that they became a permanent component of their owner, decorating his appearance and clothes. Functional arrangement of objects confirms they were his own personal belonging. They concern mainly a variety of jewels, components of clothes, armament, coins. Their real value is captured in the symbolic value of ornaments, toilet objects or arranged value of side dishes and reaping hooks. The value of jewels is determined by the value of the used metal, the degree of difficulty of their production and decoration techniques, number of samples, their esthetic effect and so on. Material coming from burial grounds evaluated by means of these criteria may bring remarkable results. Burial ground in Èakajovce with 805 analyzed skeleton graves dated from the 9th and 10th century is a good example. Its top zone contains the biggest number of graves with an above standard inventory and elements of burial ritual. The number of these graves was lower in the middle zone, there were none in the bottom zone and vice versa. The greatest number with significant and mild anomalies concerning the way of laying the dead and the occurrence of anti vampire practices were found in the bottom zone. They were rather rare in the middle zone and the lowest number was in the top zone of the burial ground. It is hard to find causes of the mentioned phenomenon. However, it seems that the top zone of the necropolis might have belonged to members of the original patronymic family which was the first to bury the dead in that place. They chose the top of the hill being the most prestigious part of the terrain. Taking into consideration the permanent above standard equipment of the graves, it is rather natural to assume that they were also the first ones to choose places with the best quality soil. The rule of the right to choose first might have been a part of a former custom law for a long time applied in cases of changing locality of grounds in the neighbourhood of a village. Family relatives, having joined the original inhabitants later, must have been satisfied with less acceptable conditions for the economic activity.