Nemesnádudvar - Avars from the old vineyard

In 2014, József Dömötör, a museum-friendly metal detectorist, reported to our museum that an old vineyard was being grubbed up at the lands called Klösterle on the outskirts of Nemesnádudvar and that he found large quantities of archaeological finds there. A team from the museum conducted excavations on the site; the fieldwork continued in 2016. A total area of 121 m2 was explored, yielding 34 archaeological features: thirteen Sarmatian beehive-shaped storage pits and 21 Avar graves. Besides, Bronze and Árpád Age finds were collected from the surface.
The NW–SE-oriented graves were arranged in irregular rows; four of them intersected. The bottom of several rectangular grave pits featured depressions or postholes, the traces of a former funerary bed or some other structure. Most deceased were laid to rest stretched on their back, save for one, who was lying halfway on the stomach and with slightly pulled-up legs. As the anthropological evaluation of the human remains is still in progress, the gender of the individuals was determined from the finds in their graves. Based on that, women were laid to rest in ten graves, men in six, and children in two.
Many of them were provided with food and drink for the afterlife, as attested by the animal bones found in thirteen graves, the pottery vessels in four, and the eggshell in one. The recovered find material abounds with metal sheet spherical pendant and bead pendant earrings; besides, women typically wore colourful glass bead jewellery. Their most common personal tool is a spindle whorl or spindle disc. One of the men was buried with a rare bronze pinzette. No burial reflected conspicuous wealth, but the composition of the grave assemblages attests to a consistent local practice. Based on the find material, the cemetery part could be dated to the second half of the 7th–early 8th century AD.