Cultic Inventory From the Bronze Age Settlement From Șoimuş – Teleghi (Hunedoara County)

Abstract

The preventive archaeological research fulfilled on the Deva – Orăştie highway route, led us to discover a large settlement belonging to the Bronze Age, on the terrace of the Mureş River, at Şoimuş – Teleghi (Hunedoara County). Some of the investigated features from this site contain large quantity of pottery and bone artefacts. These artefacts are vessels with celestial symbolic representations, decorated hearths and portable stoves (pyraunoi) with anthropomorphic plastic applications. Among these, there are animal bones such as vertebras and phalanges, some of them processed and with intense using traces. Another category of special objects was the clay wheels models, which were found in several pits, whole or fragmentary. Despite being part of the assemblage of a clay wagon model, these items were found separately, indicating that the wheel itself had a special meaning in the imaginary of the community. We consider that all these artefacts had a special function in rituals activities and also that they were used, probably, in shamanic practices.