Sabretache plates – The treasures of the Hungarian conquering elite

Sabretaches ornated with decorative mounts are an emblematic artefact type in the archaeological record of 10th-century landtaking Hungarians. These leather purses were worn on the belt for keeping small everyday items, mainly those of fire making. Most specimens come from burials of men. The custom of decorating sabretaches with ornate metallic plates that cover the full front flap was thought to emerge in the Carpathian Basin due to the abundance of precious metals gained in plundering campaigns throughout Europe. However, discoveries of the past years yielded a number of such findings from Early Medieval context in Eastern Europe, east of the Carpathian Mountains. Earlier, burials containing remains of sabretaches seemed to concentrate east of the Danube, mainly in the Trans-Tisza region. But a series of infrastructure development projects in the past few decades brought about extensive archaeological research in the concerned areas, including ones outside the former focus area of research, and, as a result, the collection of the Ferenczy Museum Centre became enriched with find material of more than one Hungarian Conquest Period cemetery.
The main sensation of the future exhibition is displaying all sabretache plates found in the territory of Hungary thus far, including the two specimens discovered near Páty. The exhibition, co-organised with the Hungarian National Museum, will offer an opportunity for visitors to see in Szentendre not only the sabretache plates but, for the first time, the most remarkable findings from the outstanding record of the Páty cemetery.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue published in Hungarian and English and a three-day-long conference, starting at the time of the exhibition’s opening, where experts of the Hungarian Conquest Period might survey new results of linguistic, archaeological, and historical research.