Martin Stejskal

The Spiš Castle (Spišský hrad) hill (632 a.s.l.) is located administratively within the village of Žehra, Spišská Nová Ves district, the northern part of eastern Slovakia, in the historic region of Spiš. Since the 12th century, the top of the hill has become the seat of a vast royal castle complex as the seat of the Spiš Komitat (County). It is a multicultural place, that has already been inhabited in prehistoric times. For many years there have been excavation works done here that yielded a substantial amount of archaeological material including artefacts dated before the building of the castle. However, due to numerous reconstructions of Spišský hrad involving repeated earthworks, this material is located within the secondary deposit. These discoveries include a relatively small ceramics inventory with features typical of the Mierzanowice culture groups from the eastern part of the Polish Carpathians. The most numerous in this collection are fragments of ceramics referring directly to the inventories known from the late-Mierzanowice-culture assemblages. This indicates the presence of zonal cord ornaments formed in a wavy line, with negatives of cord imprints inclined to the right, knobs with incisions, presence of the triangle-shaped stamp ornamentation, Besenstrichmuster-type roughening of the belly as well as pseudo-textile ornament. In the ceramics inventory from Spišský hrad, we can indicate pottery fragments, which can be linked with the older phases of the Mierzanowice culture development. This is proven by the presence of carpet cord ornamentation with the negatives of cord imprints inclined to the left and the zonal cord ornamentation inclined to the left as well. The analysis of the Spišský hrad inventory indicates that we can identify here the direct references to the Mierzanowoice culture assemblages from the San river valley, i.e. the eastern part of the Polish Carpathian zone as well as the area between the Raba and Vistula rivers, located further west.

In the material of the Mierzanowice culture from Spišský hrad, we do not find any references to the Pleszów group of the Mierzanowice culture, inhabiting the area north of Spiš, in the western part of the Polish Carpathians.