Accesorii vestimentare şi podoabe în necropolele birituale din Transilvania (sec. VII–IX) / Clothing Accessories and Finery Found in Biritual Necropolises in Transylvania (7th–9th centuries)

Within the contents of this study we have focused on the analysis of clothing accessories and of finery found incremation as well as in inhumation graves as part of the cemeteries of whose biritual character we are certainof. Due to the fact that the Berghin and Târnava cemeteries have not been published yet, the author will referto them only to the extent to which certain inventory items are mentioned in other studies. Even from thebeginning we have to mention the fact that these items are not of large number compared to the high number ofthe graves discovered, firstly due to the large number of incineration graves which led to their demise through theprocess of burning and secondly because of the shallowness of the graves which led to their obliteration due toseveral agricultural or town planning work processes. As items of clothing accessories only different types of beltbuckles (round, rectangular, trapeze shaped, metal plate) and fibulas have been found. Items of finery have alsobeen found like belt ornaments (especially Avar cast ones), different types of earrings (simple, half moon shaped,with a cluster made of metal grains, with a spiral shaped pendant, with a spheric pendant) bracelets, rings andbeads. A first conclusion can be drawn, in that there is a significant difference between the number of the gravesin which clothing accessories and those in which produced finery items – the latter are of a much larger number.Furthermore, concerning the incineration and the inhumation types of graves one difference becomes obviousand that is more clothing accessories have been found in cremation tombs than in those of inhumation, whilethe finery were of a larger number in the inhumation tombs. These differences are caused by the larger numberof incineration tombs but also by the fact that a lot of items found in this type of graves have been destroyedonce the dead person was burnt on the funeral pyre. We must also mention the fact that the most of the lattercategory of objects come from the Bratei cemetery, a fact that is not in the least surprising since this is the biggestcemetery of this type which was published. We must also note the existence of only two graves, one of cremationand another one of inhumation in which items of both categories can be found, namely beads and belt buckles.In a series of inhumation graves earrings have been discovered in association with beads. Their discovery in bothtypes of graves, together with other items (especially ceramic material), but sustained by the intercalation of theinhumation graves amongst those of cremation, prove that they coexisted in the same timespan and the biritualcharacter of these cemeteries. m e analogies with similar items from the Carpathic area but also with areas to theEast or to the South of the Carpathians support the dating of these cemeteries within the 7th and the 9th century.