The settlement on the banks of the Danube, belonging to the Bell Beaker Csepel Group, was excavated for a stretch of 3000 m2 within which the archaeologists found a circular ended, multi-spaced, pillar-based house. It was surrounded by refuse-pits and clay-pits. Farther off from both the settlement and the Danube, in the burial place of the settlers, a group of burials with contracted skeletons and cremated urn-graves came to the surface. The moustache-designed vessel was found in several levels of the charred, ashy filling of a pit nearby the house, presumably because the pottery was broken deliberately.

Morphology of the object:

The vessel has a cylindrical neck, its rim slightly turning outwards, widening out in the lower one-third of the pottery. The wide strap-handle on one side starts from the rim and leans on the widening of the neck, while on the opposite side a small subcutaneous handle can be found.

The vessel is reddish-brown, burnished and decorated with incised bands of motifs. Its wide strap-handle is decorated with a herring-bone pattern, below it on the side a moustache-decoration is shown in relief. The prehistoric potter, wanting to achieve symmetry, imitated the strap-handle on the opposite side with vertical lines (and incised zigzag motifs in between), which terminate in the subcutaneous handle. Under this the moustache-design reappears.

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This piece of pottery is unique because the analysis of its decorational patterns has made it clear that it carries the stylistic characteristics of several contemporary cultures. Vessels with asymmetrical handles are known from the Early Bronze Age Makó culture. This decorational style originates in the Northern Balkan region. The form of the vessel – especially the cylindrical neck shape – can be found in the Early Bronze Age Somogyvár culture as well, while there is also a similarity with the „becher” type from the later phase of corded ware. The incised zigzag motif-bands are unique to the Bell Beaker culture, although they made more use of the stamp technique to decorate their pottery. The moustache-design in relief is (rarely) used with the so-called accompanying ceramics (Beigleitkeramik), while it also occurs in the Proto-Nagyrév circle. The exceptionally decorated pottery, probably serving exceptional functions as well, can be dated to the early phase of the Bell Beaker Csepel Group, in which the characteristic features of the Balkan-Aegean regions mix with those of the pottery ware of Makó, Proto-Nagyrév and the Bell Beaker cultures.

Anna Endrődi The settlement and cemetery of the Bell-Beaker Culture in the district of Szigetszentmiklós.in: Archaeological researches on the line of Motorway M0. Budapest 1992 83-201. Budapest History Museum Anna Endrődi Results of settlement archaeology in Bell Beaker Culture research in Hungary BAR S690 (1998) 141-161. In: Some New Approaches to the Bell Beaker „Phenomenon”-Lost Paradise...?: Proceedings of the 2nd Meeting of the „Association Archéologie et Gobelets „ Feldberg (Germany), 18-20th April 1997. Ed: Marion Benz, Samuel van Willigen. (England)