Gepids

After all the art exhibitions I've been to, it's been time to get serious and learn something about the past as well, so I went to a different exhibition on Thursday, to the history museum.

There were two exhibitions actually, so I shot two birds with one stone and with one ticket. Today I'd like to show you photos from the exhibition called Gepids.

The Gepids (Latin: Gepidae, Gipedae, Ancient Greek: Γήπαιδες) were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion and language of the Goths and Vandals.

They are first mentioned by Roman sources in the third century. In the fourth century, they were among the peoples incorporated into the Hunnic Empire, within which they formed an important part. After the death of Attila, the Gepids under their leader Ardaric, led an alliance of other peoples who had been in the empire, and defeated the sons of Attila and their remaining allies at the Battle of Nedao in 454. The Gepids and their allies subsequently founded kingdoms on the Middle Danube, bordering on the Roman Empire. The Gepid Kingdom was one of the most important and long-lasting of these, centered on Sirmium, and sometimes referred to as Gepidia. It covered a large part of the former Roman province of Dacia, north of the Danube, and compared to other Middle Danubian kingdoms it remained relatively uninvolved with Rome. source

Shame on me, but it was the first time I heard about gepids. Maybe it was taught in school but I can't recall learning about them. Anyway, it's never too late, so there you go, I quoted what I could find on Wikipedia, so you don't have to research it.

Because we're talking about times long passed,the third and the fourth century, these objects found during excavations, are accompanied by historical descriptions you can read on these boards. It's a very nice way to educate visitors and I like it a lot.

The other very cool thing is that everything is written in three languages, so if you don't speak any of the local languages, you have English to rely on.

The objects exhibited here were found at the cemetery of Ernei, a small village in Mures county, Romania and date back to the migration period. What you see here are the usual objects left to us by the gepids, meaning what usually resists time and those are objects made of metal, like coins, then beads and ceramics and so on.

Thanks to the burial customs of the time, we have these objects now. It was common to bury people with their belongings and as the boards says, the gepids had the habit of burying their loved ones with food and drinks. This could have been because they believed in afterlife and most likely they wanted their loved ones to have something to survive on once they get to the other side.

Because the place where these items have been found is the graveyard, I was expecting to see skeletons, or bones at least and here it is.

While I was looking at the skeleton and reading about the circumstances in which it was found, some crazy thoughts crossed my mind. This topic most likely divides us in many ways and it's not really something people talk about.

To clarify my position, I don't believe in afterlife. For me, life ends when I close my eyes for the last time. What comes after that does not really concerns me as it's out of my hands. However, not everyone thinks like that. Many religions believe in afterlife and people are preparing themselves for the afterlife.

What I was thinking here is the following. Reading the description about how the grave of this woman was found, how she was dressed, what objects were found in her grave, makes me think because of the burying ritual they had back then, gives us the opportunity to learn about the past. So those items of the close have not helped the woman in her afterlife but it helped us for sure.

Could have taken a better photo, but the text is visible regardless and worth reading. It's shocking what you learn here. Artificial skull deformation? In the 5th century? This is quite shocking but not entirely unusual. There has been and still are communities where artificial face and body deformation is still very real. Like placing rings around your neck, till your neck is way longer than usual, deforming lips or ears, but these are mostly isolated tribes and not the masses.

This is the content of the grave they found at Sangeorgiu De Mures. Apart from the human bones, you can see a comb and the bones of a horse as well, which is odd. I know ancient people got buried with their favorite pet or animal, but a horse is still a horse and you can hardly call it a pet.

This board was a bit far from me and in an awkward position, so the quality of the photo is poor, but I'm glad it's still readable as what you read here is important and quite shocking. One thing you can notice, besides the artificially distorted skulls is how young these people were. I don't know what was the average age back then, but it was certainly not close to what it is today.

This board may seem like an ad for a cool video game, but it's not. It's about the centuries of the migration period. It's an amazing, visual way of learning in my opinion and for me this is the most helpful tool one can have as I have a very good visual memory. You can learn about the appearance of the Huns in Eastern Europe in 370, the Hunic victory against the Visigoths in 376, Attila's death in 453 and so on.

Seeing the content of the graves and reading these boards, there's something that seems strange to me. Why were combs buried with those people? I mean jewellery and objects of value make sense, but combs? Strange.

Here's two close up photos of the skulls, in case you haven't seen a human skull yet.

This is a buckle from the age of the gepids. Look at the details. The work on this piece is absolutely amazing.

Cemeteries are always testimony of the past but up until now, I have always thought about cemeteries in terms of headstones, not the content of the graves. Disturbing graves is a big no, but after all those years, it becomes an archeological matter. Many cemeteries were buried over the centuries and found accidentally.

This was definitely an interesting historical exhibition.

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