MORMINTE DE CAI ȘI CU CAI DIN SECOLELE VII-VIII DIN TRANSILVANIA
HORSES’ GRAVES AND GRAVES WITH HORSES FROM VIITH-VIIITH CENTURIES IN TRANSYLVANIA

Summary/Abstract: The first and most important remark is that in Transylvania, the funerary practice of burying horses or only parts of horses in graves can be attributed to the Avar milieu. The number of horse burials is very small in the Transylvanian Plateau in comparison with other areas of the Avar Khaganate. At the same time, not all types of horse burials identified in the Carpathian Basin are recognised in Transylvania. The number of horse burials is also small compared to the number of 7th–8th c. necropolises from Transylvania or the number of graves within each cemetery. The most numerous are the graves accommodating the horse alone, followed by those with the human deceased accompanied by bones of the horse skeleton and, finally, by those with the deceased accompanied by a complete horse.The first type of burial dates from between the years 630 and 670, while the last type characterises the end of the Middle Avar period and the 8th c. Very likely, the harness parts and the weapons specific to the Avar warriors which have been found by chance at different sites in the Transylvanian Plateau once belonged to horse burials. Still, it is just as possible that the artefacts thus found were the only additions to the funerary inventory, illustrating a distinct type of burial in the Avar cemeteries of the Avar Khaganate 1.The occurrence of horse burials in Transylvania is exclusively associated with the Avars. They were the ones that buried not only their warriors but also important persons from the top of the Avar hierarchy together with horses, a funerary practice that the Avar tribes brought with them from Asia and the Eurasian steppes. In the Gepid or Gepid-Avar cemeteries at Band, Bistrița, Bratei 3, Noșlac, Fântânele, Șpălnaca and Valea Largă, the presence of horses or of only some bones of the horse skeleton in graves is the result of the effective presence of the Avars, who after the year 630 cohabitated with the Gepids and buried their dead in the Late Gepid cemeteries from Transylvania.

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