Keszthely culture

The Keszthely culture was created by the romanized pannonians in the VI, VII and VIII centuries around the fortified village of "Castellum" (now Keszthely), near the lake Balaton in now western Hungary.

This culture flourished under the Avars domination of Pannonia, as the artisan center of artifacts (mainly of gold) in the area.

History

Pannonia, a province of the Western Roman empire, was devastated by the barbarian invasions (Huns, Gepidae, Avars, etc.). Only a few thousands romanized pannonians survived the onslaughts, mainly around the lake Pelso (now lake Balaton) in small fortified villages like Keszthely.

The Romanic population from Pannonia created the "Keszthely culture" that evolved mainly during the 6th-7th centuries. Its artefacts were made in the workshops of Roman origin located mainly in the fortified settlements of Keszthely-Fenékpuszta and Sopianae (actual Pécs). The Romanic craftsmen worked for their masters (Gepidae and Avars).

Under the Avars the roman castle of Fenékpuszta near Keszthely and the surroundings were not occupied so the original romanized inhabitants lived on undisturbed. They paid food and artisan goods for peace from the Avars. After 568 new Christian romanized pannonians arrived here, probably from the destroyed Aquincum (actual Budapest). The Keszthely-Fenékpuszta fortress became the centre of a 30 km diameter area, where the people buried their dead adorned with jewellery and clothing of Byzantine origin. They rebuilt the fortress Basilica, where the principals of the community were buried, while their relatives found their final resting places next to the nearby "horreum" (granary).

In 626 the Avars were seriously defeated under Constantinople, which was followed by a civil war. The leaders of the Keszthely-Fenékpuszta community had supported those who were later defeated. That was why the Avars besieged and then destroyed the fortress of Fenékpuszta. They made the rest of the romanized population move into the territory of the town centre. The Christian romanized population got under military suppression. The cemeteries in the 7th and the 8th centuries entombed both Avars and Christians, but they were buried separately. The different religions did not allow them to mix even after death. The Christian romanized populations, who spoke their own romance pannonian language, cut from the outer world created a unique, characteristic material culture, which we know from the findings of the cemeteries near Keszthely. These findings got called the "Keszthely culture". At that time, Keszthely was the center of the pannonian region because the Balaton's area was crossed by roads connecting the Danube and the Mediterranean.

At the end of the 8th century under the reign of Charlemagne, the Francs overthrew the Avar Empire and they invaded the pannonian plains. The Christian romanized populations living around Keszthely quickly took over the western Christian customs, which among others meant that they buried their dead without grove furniture so now it is impossible to identify them. The Fenékpuszta fortress was repaired again in the 9th century. Its walls accommodated and gave shelter to the descendants of the Avars and the southern Slavic people who had migrated in at the beginning of the century. Their cemeteries kept quite a lot of the pagan customs. The 10th century was the darkest period of Keszthely's history. Neither traces of the survival of the earlier romanized pannonian population nor of the conquering Hungarians are known to us.

Handicrafts

By the end of the 6th century we find the romanized population mainly in the row cemeteries that were newly laid out in the area of the late-roman fortresses of Keszthely (Castellum) and of Pécs (Sopianae) (southwestern Hungary). During the Avars, there also will have been romanized and byzantine people arriving from the Balkans, and they helped develop a community of rich artisans. These probably Christian communities preserved or renewed their artistic relations with the romanised population of the Mediterranean.

The characteristic costume of their women includes earrings with basket-shaped pendants, disc brooches with early Christian motifs, and dress-pins. The early Christian symbols include crosses, bird-shaped brooches and pins decorated with bird figures (one bird-shaped brooch bears an incised cross). The romanized population of Pannonia in general became ‘Avarized’, and only in the close vicinity of Keszthely can their ‘island’ of Late-Antique culture be traced, where their traditional costume was worn until the beginning of the 9th century.

Language

The name of the settlement Keszthely may mean a continuity, which can be traced back to the Latin "castellum" (castle).

The linguists Magdearu Alexandru (in "Românii în opera Notarului Anonim") and Julius Pokornyin (in "Indogermanisches Etymologisches Worterbuch") write that the word "kestei" (as is pronuncied in humgarian Keszthely) is similar to the venetian/istrian word "caestei", meaning castle, and it is one of the few surviving words from the extinct romance pannonian language.

This extinct language of the romanized pannonians has given many toponyms to the area around the lake Balaton.

References

* Magdearu, Alexandru. "Românii în opera Notarului Anonim". Centrul de Studii Transilvane, Bibliotheca Rerum Transsylvaniae, XXVII. Cluj-Napoca 2001.
*Mommsen, Theodore. "The Provinces of the Roman empire". Barnes & Noble Books. New York 2003
* Remondon, Roger. "La crise de l’Empire romain". Collection Nouvelle Clio – l’histoire et ses problèmes. Paris 1970
* Szemerény, Oswald. "Studies in the Kinship Terminology of the Indo-European Languages". Leiden 1977
* Tagliavini, Carlo. "Le origini delle lingue neolatine". Patron Ed. Bologna 1982

External links

*Link (on www.yahoo.com) showing the image of a pannonian girl of the Keszthely culture in the sixth century ( A girl in Romanised costume, wearing a hair-net decorated with gold tubes, earrings with basket pendants, and a disc brooch. Keszthely-Fenékpuszta, Horreum, grave 9 (after Schulze-Dörlamm 1984):brunodam.blog.kataweb.it/./photos/uncategorized/311_fig6hgy121gr009_rec_2.jpg
*Link (on www.yahoo.com) showing Avars handicraft, probably product of the "Keszthely culture":i11.photobucket.com/albums/a172/gigantomys2/Eurotrekker05/Budapest/DSCN1972.jpg
* [http://www.huninfo.hu/keszt/2keszth1.htm History of Keszthely]
* [http://www.ghg.net/shetler/rome/ Ancient Rome]