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Site version description:
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The site first appeared on the academic horizon in 1902 by the report of Pál Latinovics. Lajos Roediger conducted the first series of excavations in 1903 uncovering 6 mounds (Nr. 11, 14, 19, 20, 30 and 72). Furthermore he drew a map of the tumuli he observed and marked the excavated burials. The first five excavated tumuli were small mounds from the northern group, while mound Nr. 72 was the largest amongst the barrows which was later re-excavated by Mihály Kőhegyi as mound Nr. 1. Excavations were resumed in 1904 and finds were deposited in the Museum of Zombor (present-day Sombor). However these finds were processed only after 1941.
In the 1930s a local amateur local historian István Burányi Jr. was granted permission to excavate some of the mounds. His work can be reconstructed from the finds he sent to the Hungarian National Museum and the letters he wrote to István Paulovics. He mentioned a total of 117 mounds in his writings, which he also placed on a schematic map. Later on, Mihály Kőhegyi found this map only partially accurate.
In 1952 Elemér Zalotay led excavations on the site Madaras-Halmok (Mounds). Unaware of previous results, he surveyed the barrows anew and marked individual mounds of the northern and southern mound groups on grid map by numbers. He excavated mounds Nr. 17, 19 and 20. Recoginizing the magnitude of the work, the Hungarian National Museum entrusted László Nagy to aid him. Furthermore, Zalotay conducted fieldwalks on the area as well.
In 1957 Mihály Kőhegyi began to excavate the mounds endangered by strip mining with modern methods. At first he excavated mound Nr. I unraveled already by Lajos Roediger. Kőhegyi could not reconcile the differences between previous numerations, thus he began numbering anew. Excavations became regular from 1963 onwards, when the land was leased to the Rural Youth Cooperative and thus the need for its agricultural exploitation rose. Excavations were began at the westernmost mound of the northern line. Thanks to allocated trenches it soon became apparent, that there are unmarked graves between mounds (the first such grave was given feature Nr. 7). Work was concluded in October 1975, by then Mihály Kőhegyi excavated the entire Sarmatian cemetery as well as the minor Árpádian Age cemetery located on the comb transversing the site.
The Sarmatian and Árpádian Age cemeteries contained 666 burials, their extent spanned 145.000 square meters. |
