Bijelo_Brdo_culture
The Bijelo Brdo culture[1][2] or Bjelo-Brdo culture[3] is an early medieval archaeological culture flourishing in the 10th and 11th centuries in Central Europe. It represents a synthesis of the culture introduced in the Carpathian Basin by the conquering Hungarians around 900 and of earlier cultures existing in the territory (in present-day Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia) before the Hungarian conquest.[4] Female dress accessories, including "jewellery of plaited wire, two-piece sheetwork pendants, snake-head bracelets and S-shaped temple-reings" (P. M. Barford),[4] are the most characteristic items of the culture.[3] The culture disappeared around 1100, most probably not independently of laws adopted under Kings Ladislaus I and Coloman of Hungary which prescribed the burial of dead in graveyards developed near churches.[3]
Initially it was thought that the poorer Hungarian(Magyar) gravesites were Slavic and that only the rich horse-warrior burials were Hungarian. This view was challenged in the 1940s and is now rejected by Hungarian scholars, who see the poorer burials as Magyar commoners, such as Béla Szőke.[5]
It is named after an archeological site, a medieval graveyard found near the village of Bijelo Brdo, Croatia and excavated since 1895.[6] The dating at 7th Century of Site 1 was established by Zdenko Vinski.[7]
According to the Russian archaeologist Valentin Vasilyevich Sedov, the basic territory of Bijelo Brdo culture included territory of present-day Hungary, southern Slovakia and part of Serbian Vojvodina.[8]
