ArcheoBudaPest 2020/15

Keywords: Prehistory, Middle Neolithic, Transdanubian Linear Pottery culture, layer finds, Early Bronze Age, Bell Beaker culture, Middle Bronze Age, Vatya culture, settlement, Roman Age, cemetery, burial, cremation, inhumation

Between 3 and 27 July 2020, a full-scale excavation was conducted as part of the ’Graphisoft Park South 1’ project at Ángel Sanz Briz Road (plot no. 19333/59) in District III of Budapest.

Prior to the excavation, archaeological monitoring of the mechanical soil removal took place between 4 April and 2 July 2020. A total of 896.28 m² was available for archaeological investigation. The high-density single-layer site yielded a total of 92 archaeological features, of which 34 were Bronze Age settlement features and 17 were Roman-age graves (Fig. 1).

Previous investigations on the site include excavations carried out by teams led by Gábor Lassányi of the Budapest History Museum in the territory of the former Gasworks and the current Graphisoft Park. The unearthed phenomena comprise Copper and Late Bronze Age settlement features (Lassányi–Szeredi 2017), as well as Early Bronze Age and Roman burials (Lassányi 2011). Also as part of the Graphisoft Park expansion project, more recently, Farkas Márton Tóth conducted excavations in two phases south of that area in 2019–2020 (Hajdu–Tóth 2020; Hajdu et al. 2022).

The site’s rich and patchwork-like archaeological landscape reflects intensive land use from the Neolithic onward, shaped by favourable geomorphological conditions such as fluvial ridges and alluvial fans along the Danube in Óbuda. The excavation area lies on the southwestern slope of a sandy prominence that once extended southward from the mouth of the Aranyhegy Stream.
Most of the excavated features and artefacts date to the Early (ca. 2500–2100 BC) and Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000–1450 BC), though the find material was generally scarce and uncharacteristic. Settlement activity from this period was mainly represented by circular pits of varying size and depth, interpreted as storage or refuse pits. In addition, stray artefacts likely from disturbed burials, including some Middle Neolithic (ca. 5450–4900 BC) potsherds, a complete jug of probably the Bell Beaker culture (second half of the 3rd millennium BC), and some bronze artefacts were recovered from the humous topsoil layer (around 101.90 above Baltic Sea leve) (Fig. 2).

During the Roman Age, the site was the southern part of the so-called Eastern (Gasworks) Cemetery of the civilian town of Aquincum (Kuzsinszky 1892). Accordingly, the features from this era are primarily burials. A total of seventeen graves were excavated, of which thirteen were cremation burials typical of the 1st–2nd centuries AD, and four were inhumations from the 2nd–3rd centuries AD (Fig. 3).

Despite the small number of burials, a rich assemblage of grave goods was uncovered, including pottery and glass vessels, lamps, coins, a terracotta relief, a bronze ring, and various personal items (e.g., bone hairpins, hobnails indicating the use of caliga footwear), as well as jewellery made of amber and jet (Figs. 4–5).

The excavation yielded nine crates of finds: three crates of pottery, one crate of animal bone, one crate of stone, two crates of human remains, one crate of small finds, and a crate of organic samples.

Contributors: Barbara Hajdu (lead archaeologist), Farkas Márton Tóth (archaeologist), Zsófia Zsuzsanna Kelemen (archaeological field technician), Levente Virágh (archaeological field technician), Dóra Erős (conservator), Szilvia Gábler (conservator), Gergő Juhász (surveyor, LowPoly 360 Ltd.), Henrik Ritz (drone operator, LowPoly 360 Ltd.)

Barbara Hajdu – Farkas Márton Tóth