Kelebia - A cemetery on the land of railways

Excavations were carried out in multiple stages in the area of Kelebia between February and October 2023 as part of the preparatory works of the Budapest–Belgrade railway. The site in focus covers a NW–SE dune west of the Körös-éri Channel on the northwestern fringes of the village. It was explored first with several trenches, which were joined in the next phase into a continuous one in the future construction area. After the current railway had been dismantled, we also excavated the strip under it, as well as the cable ditch along the railway and the path of the service road, excavating a total of 6010 m2 and identifying 572 archaeological features of a multi-period site with bronze Age, Roman Period (Sarmatian), Migration Period (Avar) and medieval horizons. The most intriguing record was the 146-grave Late Avar Period cemetery, the northern, eastern, and southern limits of which could be delineated.
The simple shaft graves were oriented NW–SE, which is typical of the Late Avar Period; 109 contained the remains of adults, and children were laid to rest in 37. Grave 520 was the only – unusual – dual burial, with one adult stretched on their back on the bottom of the grave and another ‘sitting’ on their leg.
The bodies were usually placed into the graves stretched on their back, with the arms along the body or bent onto the belly or the hips, and the legs stretched, touching at the knees or the ankles. Five persons, however, were flexed, laying on their sides with the knees pulled up, while one, the adult in Grave 518, was found in an irregular position with the legs up in the air, leaning against the short end wall of the grave pit – probably because the grave pit was too small for them or the corpse was simply thrown in. Only two graves contained coffin clasps, but the corpses were wrapped in shrouds in 48 (as indicated by the touching legs, the pulled-in shoulders, and the overall ‘compact’ position of the skeletal remains).
The graves of seventy adults and nine children contained some kind of funerary structure, indicated by depressions in the bottom of the grave pits, which once housed a post or beam supporting a funerary bed or other wooden structure.
Grave reopening was quite frequent based on the number of graves where the bones of the skull, the upper body, or even the whole skeleton were mixed up instead of being in anatomical order. The graves were likely plundered while the cemetery was still in use or right after abandoning it when the looters knew exactly who was buried where and what valuable items were interred with them. The proportion of disturbed burials was lower among children's graves than adults, likely because they were interred with less precious objects or because robbing a child’s grave was considered unacceptable.