A gilded attire set from the museum of Srem - a contribution to the study of the Hungarian conquest period in the southernmost area of the Carpathian basin

Abstract

In this paper, part of a gilded attire set for decorating clothes is published, from the Museum of Srem, belonging to the Hungarian arts-and-crafts milieu of the period immediately after their set-tling in the Pannonian Plain. The group of finds, consisting of a total of 14 pieces, was gifted to the Museum in the middle of the 2oth century as a legacy of Franjo Ratki, who was the parson of Sremska Mitrovica and trustee of the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb. It is assumed that the finds originate from the area of Mitrovica, where Ratki used to procure antiquities, or the wider region of Syrmia. It is a set consisting of two-piece pendants and two types of appliques which used to adorn the attire of the female part of the population in the 1oth century. On this oc-casion, formal, technological and decorative characteristics are examined, through a comparative analysis with similar decora-tive sets from the Carpathian Basin. Finally, with an overview of other archaeological finds of similar chronology, historical circumstances and the nature of the Hungarian presence in the area between the Danube and the Sava are briefly discussed.