Soltvadkert - The first Avars in Vadkert

Dozens of Avar cemeteries have been known for a long time from the area of almost every settlement adjacent to Soltvadkert. The archaeological record of this area includes numerous exceptional sites and assemblages; even some graves of the Avar elite have been discovered on the outskirts of the neighbouring Kiskőrös, Kecel, and Kaskantyú (or, as is mistakenly known, Bócsa). Vadkert itself, however, was hiding its secrets for a long time, and no report reached the local museum about the discovery of even a single lonely Avar grave in its territory. Topographic research in the administrative area intensified in the 2000s. The related surveys yielded several new sites with more than one Avar settlement amongst them, but still, no grave was known from the period, not even one destroyed by ploughing.
Fieldwork was carried out on multiple venues on the outskirts of the town preceding the construction of the Soltvadkert bypass of Road 53. The perhaps most exciting site was found along the road to Lake Vadkert; its discovery was a total surprise as it was completely unknown before. The excavation was carried out on the site in 2023, covering an area of 14,070 m2 and yielding more than five hundred features from three historical periods: details of a 3rd-century AD Sarmatian and a 12th-century AD Árpád Age village and 34 graves of an Avar cemetery.
All burials were simple shaft graves oriented mostly NW–SE. The remains of a coffin could not be discerned in any of them, but almost all contained traces of diverse grave structures, mainly a pair of round or rectangular depressions at both ends of the grave pit, indicating funerary beds.
Based on find material and anthropological characteristics, the burials were the final resting place for eight men, 22 women, and four children. The graves were arranged in rows and formed at least three or four distinct clusters.
All graves but three were furnished. Women’s burials contained typical jewellery (earrings and beads); twelve of them were buried with a pair of earrings. The mortuary garment of five men included belts decorated with 20–50 cast bronze mounts and fittings adorned in the tendril style. All belts were buckled up and in a wearing position upon discovery.
Based on the recovered find material, the unearthed cemetery part could be dated to the third phase of the Avar Period or the mid- and late 8th century AD.