Hortobágy-Árkus kora középkori temetője/The Early Medieval Cemetery at Hortobágy-Árkus

The Hortobágy-Árkus cemetery, excavated almost a lifetime ago, is a legendary site, and expectations concerning its publication have been running high among early medieval archaeologists. The historical significance of the cemetery is indeed immense: it is unique not only because of its outstanding finds and burial customs, but also because of the fact that it was in continuous use from the late 7th century to the 10th century, i.e., from the Late Avar period to the Hungarian Conquest period. Until recently, little information has been available on the Late Avar elite dating from the end of the 7th to the first third of the 9th century. The Hortobágy cemetery, however, provides data not only on their identity, but also on how an Avar elite group managed to get integrated into Árpád’s Hungarians. The archaeological analysis in this volume is complemented by the results of various disciplines – archaeological anthropology, archaeozoology, and archaeometallurgy.