Aurel Dragotă. Battle-axes in the cemeteries from Banat, Crişana and Transylvania (10th century) // Warriors, Weapons, and Harness from the 5th-10th Centuries in the Carpathian Basin / Ethnic and Cultural Interferences in the 1st Millennium B.C. to the 1st Millennium A.D. / Ed. Călin Cosma. – 2015. – Vol. XXII. – P.129-146.

Battle-axes (fokos/fokosch, fejsze, balta) appear mostly in warrior graves dated in the 10th century. In our territory, three major types of axes can be distinguished: the balta type shape, axes with faceted edge and a type displaying two blades bowed in the same direction.

In the graves containing axes, a horse offering is sometimes present, but also in various combinations: pottery (Alba Iulia- Stația de Salvare/S. VIII/M. 1; Cluj-Napoca- Str. Pata/M. 15), sabre (Szentes-Szentlászló/M. 6), quiver fragments (Szentes-Szentlászló/M. 6), arrowheads, knives, a strike-a-light, stirrups (Szentes-Szentlászló/M. 2, M. 6; Tiszavasvári – Aranykerti tabla/M. 4), curb bit, trapezoidal or oval buckle and rings 13 Giesler.

In the 10th century, the axes were deposed in the chest area on the right side, in the pelvic area, on the right arm, on the lower limbs, with the blade towards the edge of the grave, stuck between the legs or layed in the quiver.

The analysis of the funerary inventories (Hungarian adornments of Eastern invoice, arms and harnesses) demonstrates the indisputable fact that the second path of the Hungarian penetration in Transylvania, the Mureș Valley, was used only after the mid–10th century.

Keywords: weaponry, axe, socket hole, blade, edge