Archaeological traces of Ancient Hungarians in Slovenian territory

Abstract

Only a few artefacts that can be related to the presence of ancient Hungarians in the territory of present-day Slovenia have been discovered so far. These finds encompass items of equestrian equipment, as well as weapons, and a single item of attire set or jewellery: iron stirrups of various forms, parts of belt sets and straps, a chain with heart-shaped pendants, arrowheads and possibly the remains of an arrow quiver. They originate from various types of findspot: hilltop sites, settlements, cemeteries and a river. The prevailing type, however, is hilltops (Gradišče above Trebenče, Ljubična above Zbelovska Gora, Gradišče above Bašelj, Veliki Gradec near Drežnica, and Zidani Gaber above Mihovo). In the majority of cases the finds were discovered with metal detectors and therefore come without precise location data or stratigraphic contexts. Iron stirrups discovered at Tabor, above Tomaj, and in the Ljubljanica river, as well as a belt buckle from Zgornji Breg, in Ptuj, are also chance finds. In rare cases, finds of ancient- Hungarian character have been discovered in systematically-investigated sites, such as Ajdna above Potoki, Tonovcov Grad near Kobarid, and Pristava in Bled. Arrowheads from debris or charred layers in these settlements likely testify to ancient-Hungarian invaders. Ancient-Hungarian burials in Slovenian territory have not been unambiguously confirmed yet. Only two graves of the Ptuj Castle cemetery have been purportedly ascribed to them. The artefacts collected from Slovenian sites have been studied predominantly from the typological perspective and dated on the basis of comparable sites and artefacts from neighbouring regions, especially from graves in the Carpathian Basin. Their presence at Slovenian sites can be explained by frequent incursions of ancient Hungarians to the West between the end of the 9th century and the middle of the 10th, which also crossed the territory of present-day Slovenia and are reported in historical sources. However, we cannot exclude the possibility that some of these items came to the findspots as a consequence of more peaceful contacts with ancient Hungarians whose area of settlement was not too far away.