The cemetery lies on the edge of historical core of Nitra. There were found 101 graves. Their number is not complete, part of graves was destroyed by ground works and the oldest parts of cemetery were not excavated. The structure of cemetery consists of nine groups of graves localised in three parallel lines. Manifestations of burial customs are homogenous. Only three unusual positions of upper extremities and four graves with manifestation of pre-Christian defensive practices make an exception. Typological analysis of artefacts contributed to chronological specification of burial limited by the beginning of 10th c. and turn of 10th and 11th c. Information about local community was significantly restricted by absent results of professionally evaluated anthropological material. Intensity of burying gradually descended according to demographic analysis. It is possible that the end of cemetery was connected with removal of settlement to other locality. Observation of social stratification of individuals was restricted to seven graves with excessive measurements of grave pits. Deceased with higher rank could have been laid in them. Cemetery was created by members of local Slavic population in the end of Great Moravian period. Their ethnicity was not changed when they started to use limited amount of artefacts of Hungarian origin or later when using material filling of Bijelo Brdo culture. We cannot exclude, despite this fact, that individuals of Hungarian origin could have been exceptionally included in the community. Proofs of acceptation of Christianity are absent in grave material.
During the history of man the burying ground had its role and meaning, depended on historical period, and type of society. In our culture complex of the cemetery is understood as a place of final separation of dead person from the society of living and also the place connected with a new special kind of relationship, which arise thanks to death of some close person. This place is still full of symbols, signs, information, and it is a presentation of values, attitudes towards the death and life. The paper deals with the problem of interpretation of cemetery boundaries, their meaning and role in contemporary countryside culture in Slovakia (regions Nitra, Hont, Horehronie, Liptov). The paper also analyses the borders within the cemetery itself, the segmentation of this place in accordance to ethnic, confessional, age, social differentiations.
The reported research in Malzyce, site 30, situated on one of the vast loess-covered elevations of the Malopolska Upland has brought valuable data on the Funnel Beaker (TRB) and the Corded Ware (CWC) cultures in West Malopolska. The central grave of the TRB barrow was accompanied by five younger graves of the CWC and three graves of the Mierzanowice culture. In the TRB grave two vessels and a flint trapezium were found. In its size and constructional traits the Malzyce TRB barrow is analogous to various CWC features of this type. But because of its dating - the TRB tumulus in Malzyce cannot be regarded as a valid argument for deriving CWC burial mounds from TRB structures.
The study presents results obtained from the analysis of 54 graves. They were examined in the western and eastern part of the burial place in 1976. The central part and peripheral sections were not uncovered. In spite of it, it is clear that the graves were placed in eight groups that were filled with different intensity. The components of the burial rite have almost uniform appearance. Deviations from the standard placement of body remains are not of higher intensity; their more frequent occurrence is missing. This also applies to the shape and size of grave pits in full extent. Remains of wooden constructions of different types are even rarer. Exceptional defense practices performed on the buried individuals were in line with the then pre-Christian principles. Their influence was manifested also during demarcation of the orientation of the deceased, at placement of the burial place in the local natural environment. The composition of the burial inventory, which is represent by 30 main types and their variants, brings lower quality of knowledge. The value of knowledge is lowered by marked occurrence of representatives from the group of ritual character and daily requirements. Their dating ability is very low up to negligible. Earrings of the so called danubian and veligradian jewellery types do not bring information of better quality as well. Their specimen does not occur in stable combinations with other objects. They are situated in graves placed in two parts of the necropolis that are separated by the uncovered part. Burying in the burial place can be dated only in general into the first and second half of 9th c. because of lack of data at disposal. We are not able to determine how long the burial place was used as we have neither the initial nor the final section at disposal. With definitive validity it is also not possible to confirm the continuous process of burying, which was noticed only as indication, directed from the western to eastern part of the necropolis. However, in spite of the limited quality of input data it is possible to sort out a small group of individuals with higher or more prestigious status in the local community.
Following paper is focused on burials and burial customs of the Linear Pottery culture and Želiezovce group in the southwestern Slovakia. The region of Moravia, Lower Austria, Burgenland, Transdanubia and part of Germany came into the center of interest as well. Collected units are critically analyzed and followed by evaluation of burial customs of the Linear Pottery culture and Želiezovce group. The evaluation comprehensively summarizes the results of the analysis in the Middle Danube region. These outputs are compared with the results of previous researches and finally interpreted.
The present article discusses the issue of elimination of the fear of the dead as it appears in archaic cultures; first and foremost in connection with laments as a folklore genre and lamenting as a ritual practice. Primarily, it is the relevant Balto-Finnic and North Russian traditions that will be observed, in which lamenting has retained its original function of balancing the relationships between the spheres of the living and the dead, and of establishing borderlines, as well as that of restoring the interrupted social cohesion. Lament texts can be viewed as a multifunctional genre that may possibly even be addressed variously, but wherein nevertheless the interests of the community stand foremost, whereas personal psychological problems come only after them and as related to them. The lamenter's role and function in the society will also be examined. The second part of the article will, in connection with overcoming the fear of the dead, discuss exhumation - a phenomenon that has not been preserved in the North European cultures but that can, in the light of treated bones or incomplete skeletons in the graves of Bronze and Iron Ages, be assumed to have at one time existed even in Estonia. In cultures where exhumation has remained a living practice up to the present (Greek culture, for instance), it has probably also solved problems linked to the fear of the dead, since part of the person's skeleton is posthumously reincorporated into the society of the living, in the shape of an amulet or a talisman. The relevant rituals have been performed to the accompaniment of laments. The final part of the article will take a look at certain textual examples of the Seto laments for the dead, which may have preserved a distant memory of the practices connected with exhumation.
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