The old Hungarian burial ground. (source: TASR)
The preparation of the Valaliky industrial park for the arrival of Swedish carmaker Volvo is slowly coming to an end. However, a rare burial site at the future construction site has been discovered.
"Thanks to an archaeological survey, we discovered the first Old Hungarian burial ground in the Košice basin. It's a large burial ground. So far we have found more than 260 graves, while around 160 have been examined," says Adam Gašpar, a field archaeologist from the Institute of Archaeology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Košice. For now, the skeletons remain in place, and when they are removed they will be examined by an anthropologist. "The uncovering of the skeletons must be gently performed in order to capture the anatomical position, as well as objects that could be in the graves," Gašpar explained.
According to the archaeologist's estimate, the find will not delay the construction in the industrial park. "I don't think that will happen. We performed a probe in advance and the archaeological objects are not located under the entire area. Thus, work can be concentrated in other sections. Based on previous explorations, we suspected that there would be something here."
However, little did they know that it would be the first Old Hungarian burial ground.
Hundreds of graves, no coins
"The find made us happy. The graves date to the 10th century. We know this because we didn't find a single coin, as there were no mints at that time. If these people had had coins, someone would have probably left an obol for one of the dead (obol is a form of ancient Greek currency and weight, used in funerals as well - Ed. note)," Gašpar explained.
