Acquiring significance. Constructing warrior's identity at the Lower Mureș Valley

Abstract

Acquiring significance. Constructing warrior''s identity at the Lower Mureș Valley. The main purpose of the present discussion is the identification of the evidences that bring into light the theme of war in the chronological context of the disappearance of Bronze Age tells and the emergence of large fortified settlements on the Lower Mureș Valley. Recent researches carried out in this area (for instance the settlement from Șagu “ Sit A1_ 1” and the Bronze Age cemetery from Pecica “ Sit 14” allowed us to find out more things about the social identity of the warrior, than the usual norms established by researchers. Moreover, the identity of the individual as a warrior during lifetime could be demonstrated by a series of enthesopathies, identified at the level of the upper limbs muscles. The individual activity of the deceased as a warrior could be also suggested by a closer analysis of the combinations in which the object parts of its funerary inventory appear. In most of the cases the funerary inventory could give us proofs related with the transformations that took place in the field of warfare. A closer look given at the weapons discovered on the Lower Mureș Valley, allows some observations to be made. For instance, we observed that a very small number of weapons are dating from Early Bronze Age, the majority of them are random discoveries and only one weapon is part of a funerary inventory. The situation radically changed together with the emergence of tellsettlements. In this particular timeframe, most of the weapons discovered belong to funerary inventories. In the Middle Bronze Age the number of the discovered weapons is increasing towards the end of the period. The deposits from Satu Mare and Păuliș are an example for this chronological sequence. The end of the Bronze Age brings within a significant number and variety of the discovered weapons. Specific for the chronological sequence discussed in the present article, Bz. B2-C is a continuity of the Middle Bronze Age traditions. Moreover, most of the weapons belong to a funerary context. In the same time, one could observe that a certain type of weapon (generally daggers and axes, commonly used in close range combat) provides the perfect accompaniment for the deceased.