The exhibition which formed the basis of and ultimately stimulated the organisation of the conference
“Power centres in the Avar Khaganate” two years later opened in summer 2014.
One of the main goals when creating the exhibition was to present the Avar-period finds of the Kiskunság region, namely the gold and gilded artefacts that highlighted the region’s prominent role in the Avar period, particularly in the early Avar period. Thus, every technical detail and device served the purpose of ensuring that these exceptionally splendid objects should dominate the exhibi-tion hall with its black walls and black floor, and the starry sky above (the concept and design plan of the exhibition and the main technical details are presented in the Hungarian study).
However, the site maps made for the two information boards briefly describing the period in ques-tion raised issues pointing far beyond the exhibiques-tion.
The most important sites of the early Avar period appearing on the map outlined four clearly dis-tinct centres in the Kunbábony, Bócsa, Kiskunfélegyháza/Petőfiszállás and Kecskemét/Nagykőrös ar-eas, each with its own concentration of solitary graves containing the burials of exceptionally wealthy lords and very prosperous leaders, and cemeteries containing an abundance of gold articles and some stray gold finds in their vicinity. Curiously enough, the same four areas were outlined by the most remarkable, although more modest finds of the middle and late Avar period in the Kiskunság region.
The initial goal of this study was to describe at greater length the exhibition inspiring the confer-ence and I did not intend to discuss at greater length the “message” of the four areas. However, given that the finds since brought to light that can be fitted into the exhibition’s concept can be linked to one or another of these four regions, it seems appropriate that I should now address at greater length the question vexing me during the organisation of the exhibition: how exactly should these four areas in the Kiskunság region of the Danube-Tisza interfluve be interpreted? They quite logically outline settlement territories – but whose territories?
Scholarship tends to treat the finds that can potentially be associated with the khagans as a rather sensitive issue (often very much so), although without actually specifying the reasons for this caution and for the avoidance of specific answers. It is incontestable that extremely richly furnished solitary burials have been found beyond the Kiskunság region too, but as far as I know, we never or rarely see a similar concentration of finds as in these four areas of the Kiskunság region. In my view, the assemblage from Sremska Mitrovica, no matter how incomplete, can clearly be associated with an exceptionally high-ranking individual and could theoretically even be linked to Bayan. However, if the Avar centre had remained in this area, some traces of it would surely have been preserved in the archaeological record.
Yet, to date, the concentration mentioned in the above has not been noted elsewhere and can only be traced to the broader Kecskemét area farther to the north. Thus, I can only interpret the four centres in the Kiskunság region as the settlement territory of the early Avar rulers.
It is difficult to determine their chronological sequence since we do not know of any elite burials in the Kiskunfélegyháza/Petőfiszállás area (even though the other finds from the area indicate the pres-ence of an important centre), and the exact findspot of the Nagykőrös sword, undoubtedly possessed by an individual of extremely high social standing (perhaps the khagan himself), remains uncertain.
Judging from the surviving grave goods, no matter how incomplete, even the Kunbábony “lord”
could have been the supreme leader of the Avars at the time. The similar, but nevertheless more mod-est legacy of the Bócsa “lord” is perhaps an indication that the flow of Byzantine gold had begun to dry up, which is also borne out by the fact that the most lavishly outfitted burials of the middle Avar period in the Kiskunság region lie exactly in the Bócsa area, perhaps indicating that the elite of the immigrant Onogurs had married into the family of the period’s supreme Avar leader.
The currently known finds reveal much less about the power relations of the later periods of the Avar Age: however, this is not distinctive to the Kiskunság region since truly magnificent assem-blages that could be associated with a ruler or co-ruler are not known either from this region or from elsewhere in the Carpathian Basin, and neither are there any striking concentrations of finds suggest-ing, no matter how remotely, the possible presence of a one-time power centre. In other words, the location of the power centres of the second half of the Avar period cannot be determined either from the written sources, or from the archaeological record.
1. kép. A kiállítóterület tervrajza
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2. kép. 1. Részlet a kiállításból; 2. Első információs tábla a kora avar kori betelepülésről és a lelőhelyek alapján kirajzolódó kiskunsági központokról
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3. kép. 1. A csanyteleki, a petőfiszállási és a kiskunfélegyháza-pákapusztai vezéri sírok legszebb leletei; 2. A kunbábonyi nagyúr hagyatéka
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4. kép. 1–2. Aranytárgyak a kunbábonyi nagyúr hagyatékából
5. kép. A kunbábonyi nagyúr méltóságjelző tárgyai és fejének rekonstrukciója
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6. kép. 1. Aranyveretes kardok (Kunbábony 2. sír, Kunpeszér, Kecel);
2. Aranytárgyak a bócsai nagyúr hagyatékából
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7. kép. 1. A nagykőrösi kard és a Kecskemét–Sallai úti vezér sírleletei;
2. Kora és közép avar fülbevalók kiskunsági lelőhelyekről
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8. kép. 1. Második információs tábla a közép és késő avar kori betelepülésről és a lelőhelyek alapján kirajzolódó kiskunsági központokról; 2. A kiskőrösi kislány arany ékszerei
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9. kép. 1. Fülbevalók, varkocsszorítók, veretek és szablya kiskunsági lelőhelyekről;
2.: Késő avar övveretek – ahogy ránk maradtak, és amilyenek lehettek
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10. kép. 1. Késő avar övveretek – ahogy ránk maradtak, és amilyenek lehettek;
2. Harmadik információs tábla az avar kor végéről; 3. Negyedik információs tábla:
A kiállítás megvalósításában részt vevők
11. kép. 1. Részlet a kiállításból; 2. H. Tóth Elvira és a kunbábonyi leletek (fotó: Horváth M. Attila)