Original scientific paper

Unpublished finds from the time of early Middle ages in the Archaeological museum in Osijek

Zvonko Bojčić ; Arheološki muzej Osijek, Osijek, Hrvatska

Abstract

The time of the movement of the peoples and the early Middle Ages was a turbulent, politically unstable period, ethnically very complex and interwoven. The fall of the Roman Empire, frequent power shifts, border struggles, raids, weakening of economies, new ethnicons that could not stabilize and organize in peace influenced the life in this area.
Constant insecurity and continual changes were the only permanent features in this area. This state influenced existence and work in late Ancient workshops and romanicised population that abode there and to selective settlement of different entities that either emerged, left more or less marks in material heritage or soon vanished from the political scene.
Returning to the topic of material legacy of that time housed in the Archaeological museum in Osijek it could be easily noted that it is a true reflection of the depicted circumstances in Pannonia.
Archaeological finds of early Middle Ages are impressive testimony of time in which they emerged. They are usually single, chance finds, mostly from destroyed graves, without extra data about excavations.
Exception are finds from the archaelogically researched graves that emerge in times of shorter or longer stable political conditions (the Gepides finds in Vinkovci and a number of Avars-Slavic graves in eastern Slavonia and especially in Syrmia).
The situation changed in the period of the 10th-12th centuries when larger graves of the Bijelo Brdo culture emerged (Bijelo Brdo, Vukovar-Lijeva Bara, Đakovo, Zvonimorovo and others).
We can conclude by the outlined issue that the area of eastern Slavonia had a turbulent past. It was always on the borders of empires and spheres of interest between the East and West. It can be said that it is a politically restless area where various ethnical groups, peoples and powerful states always struggled for power.
The result of the above mentioned is fragmentation, diversity and heterogeneousness of archaelogical heritage manifesting different impacts, especially in the period from 400 until 800 A.D. Thus it is sometimes difficult to determine if a certain item belongs to one or the other people, if it emerged in the workshops of the Black Sea or in Italic workshops or if it was produced in the workshops of the Romanized population or late Roman ones.
A slightly different picture is the archaelogical heritage in the 10th-12th century which is manifested by the finds of the Bijelo Brdo culture. The political conditions settled down in these areas after the last colonists in the Carpathian hollow, the Hungarians, had settled in their ethnical place.
The arrangement in relations between the Hungarian state and Slavic population in these areas brought stability and opened space to universal development which reflected in archaelogical heritage of the Bijelo Brdo culture showing the same characteristics in the entire area of the Carpathian hollow from the 10th century until the 12th century regardless of ethnical bearers and workshops in which they were made.
The archaelogical material of the movement of early Middle Ages in the Archaelogical museum in Osijek truly depicts political, ethnical and economical conditions in eastern Slavonia, Baranya and western Syrmia from the early 5th century until the late 12th century.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

206994

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/206994

Publication date:

20.12.2011.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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