On some pottery forms from the Batina-Sredno cemetery from the beginning of the Early Iron Age

Abstract

Batina (Kiskőszeg), on the Danube in Baranya, is one of the most significant sites in the southern Carpathian Basin from the end of the Late Bronze age and the beginning of the early Iron age. For more than a century, Batina has been the source of exceptional finds which are considered to originate from destroyed funerary complexes. the collected finds helped define the chronology of the development of the Dalj group, which marked the end of the Late Bronze age and the beginning of the early Iron age in the southern Carpathian Basin. a systematic field survey was made to deter­ mine the location of the Dalj group cemetery in Batina. Its results indicated that the cemetery could have been located in sredno, a site south of the contemporary settlement on gradac. this was followed by archaeological excavations in sredno, which revealed many cremation graves of the Dalj group containing ceramic, metal and glass finds, confirming the earlier hypotheses about the great significance of Batina as an important southern Pannonian centre from the end of the 2nd millennium BC and the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC, which stood on an important communica­ tion line along the Danube. the discovery of the numerous grave assemblages in Batina will enable detailed analyses of distinct pottery horizons and a better knowledge of the characteristic ceramic vessels for each distinct phase of the development of the Dalj group.