Construction of a residential complex
Site ID: 15208
Keywords: Prehistory, Late Copper Age, Baden culture, Early Bronze Age, Bell Beaker culture, settlement, Roman Age, fortification, well, Migration Period, Hun, cemetery, inhumation, Avar, settlement, Middle Ages, Árpádian Age, Late Middle Ages, settlement, oven
Between 18 September 2019 and 24 November 2020, the Budapest History Museum conducted a full-area excavation on the plot at 47 Népfürdő Street. Alongside finds from several archaeological periods, the site is home to the Roman fort historically known in the literature as Transaquincum, more recently referred to as Contra Aquincum. The excavation was necessitated by the planned construction of a residential complex, the underground garage of which would reach the archaeological layers, identifiable from a depth of approximately 2 metres. The rich results of the excavation carried out in 2020 are presented in chronological order.
The earliest evidence of land use dates to the Late Copper Age (c. 3500–3000 BC). Scattered settlement features and a small quantity of artefacts from the Baden culture were found across the site. In addition, approximately two dozen storage and refuse pits associated with the Bell Beaker culture of the Early Bronze Age (c. 2500–2100 BC), first identified during a 2018 trial excavation, were documented. These were located mostly in the lower-lying area that slopes toward the Rákos Stream at the northern edge of the excavation.
During the investigation of the Roman period remains, excavation continued inside the fort and in the zone of the southern fort wall. Within the fort, several Late Roman storage pits and other negative features were uncovered. The most significant find was the complete excavation of a stone-lined well discovered in 2019. The well’s lining was constructed primarily from reused architectural elements, including inscribed and relief-decorated altar stones, as well as bricks (Fig. 1). In 2019, a total of three inscribed altar stones were recovered from the well: one dedicated to the well-being of Emperor Gordian III and his wife, one to Silvanus Domesticus, and one to Mithras. In the deeper part of the well, we enlisted the help of stone conservators Márton Szigeti and Zoltán Kovács, who used a locally installable lifting device to more efficiently extract the stone monuments. Although no additional inscribed finds were recovered during the later phases of the well’s excavation, several more architectural elements were brought to the surface.
In 2020, we were able to fully clarify the layout and construction technique of the stone-founded command building located in the central part of the fort (Fig. 2). The survey made by Gusztáv Zsigmondy in the last third of the 19th century can be considered essentially accurate, although the building included one more room than previously presumed.
A large pit located next to the southern wall of the command building—likely originally used for material extraction but backfilled no later than the construction of the command building—yielded an abundant number of finds. The artefacts recovered from this feature and from other Roman-period contexts support the idea we had already proposed in 2019: the fort could not have been established in the 2nd century AD, since the primary stratigraphic material dates to the 4th century AD.
During the excavation, two 5th century AD burials were uncovered, dug approximately 16.5 metres southeast of the southern wall of the fort built during the Late Roman period (Fig. 3). Both burials cut into an earlier, partially backfilled Roman period pit, and the NW–SE oriented, grave-goods-less burial was situated above a north–south aligned armed male burial. The graves were dug into the western side of the Roman pit. The first burial may have belonged to the same individual or burial event as the one below it. The skeletons were found in a wide, rectangular shaft grave. In the western half of the lower grave, the imprint of a wooden coffin was also observed. At the northern and southern ends of the grave, in addition to the coffin imprint, dark brown, highly mixed patches were noted, possibly indicating the presence of organic materials (e.g. animal hide). A small niche was carved into the NE corner of the warrior burial’s grave wall, in which vessels meant as drink offerings were placed. A two-handled jug and a glass beaker placed atop it were deposited in this niche, while food offerings—pig bones—along with other items were placed in front of the jug, within the main grave pit. The grave of the armed male shows affinities with both steppe traditions and 5th century graves from the Carpathian Basin. The burial rite and some of the grave goods (such as the sword and riding whip) indicate new eastern connections, while the presence of Roman provincial traditions (multiple vessels, a double-row comb) suggests links with foederati groups allied to the Romans. Based on the grave goods and funerary customs, the burial can be dated to the first half of the 5th century AD.
Besides these burials, a few other features were also datable to the Migration Period, more specifically to the Avar Period. These may have belonged to a larger settlement uncovered in the vicinity of the nearby Jakab József Street.
In the 10th–11th century Árpádian Age layer, longitudinal drainage ditches were discovered, and evidence of settlement included two sunken-floor pit-houses, each featuring a stone-walled oven. From the 12th century layer, a section of a settlement belonging to the village of Besenyő was unearthed: fifteen small baking pits and two medium-sized baking ovens, refuse and food storage pits, and another sunken-floor pit-house (Fig. 4). Around the ovens—and partly beneath them—a complex of ditches composed of several arcs was identified, likely serving as drainage or agricultural channels.
The 13th century layer yielded storage pits, refuse pits, and large blocks of collapsed wall rubble indicating the dismantling of the Roman fort’s walls. The fort walls continued to be demolished during the 14th century, as attested by a widespread layer of stone debris.
Two Late Medieval layers were observed on the site, belonging to the village of Szent László. Three distinct plots could be distinguished, one of which had been subdivided. A total of six Late Medieval wooden house features were recorded, including clay-plastered floors, ovens with refurbished baking surfaces, stoves, partition walls, stone foundations laid either dry or set in clay, threshold stones, door hinge sockets, and structural post-holes (Fig. 5).
On the floors of the wooden houses, a large number of well-preserved iron tools were found, including a ploughshare, sickle or reed cutter, axe, fishing gaff, pitchfork or harpoon, Hussite knife, horseshoe, door fittings, carpenter’s clamps, nails, and hooks, as well as ceramic net weights. Within the fort walls, a large dug-in feature was uncovered—possibly a fish-holding basin. Based on the ash-rich destruction layer, the fishing and farming village appears to have been attacked around the mid-15th century: the wooden houses were burned down, and the inhabitants did not return.
Contributors: József Beszédes (lead archaeologist), Judit Benda (archaeologist), Dávid Kraus (archaeologist), Flóra Lamm (archaeologist), Eszter Magyar (archaeologist), Boglárka Mészáros (archaeologist), Tamás Szolnoki (archaeologist), Ágoston Takács (archaeologist), István Fábián (surveyor), Tibor Kovács (surveyor), Zsolt Viemann (surveyor), Júlia Duschanek (archaeological field technician), Alfréd Falchetto (archaeological field technician), Tamás Milbich (archaeological field technician), Zsófia Németh (archaeological field technician), Levente Virágh (archaeological field technician), Lajos Sándor (metal detector survey, Sandex Ltd), as well as archaeology students from Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), and the University of Pécs.
Well excavation specialists: Márton Szigeti, Zoltán Kovács
József Beszédes – Judit Benda – Boglárka Mészáros