The Mongol Campaign in Hungary 1241 1242

The Mongol Campaign in Hungary, 1241–1242: The
Archaeology and History of Nomadic Conquest and Massacre
Attila Gyucha, Wayne E. Lee, and Zoltán Rózsa
Abstract
Contemporaneous narrative sources described the Mongol conquest
of the Hungarian Kingdom in 1241–42 as extremely devastating, char-
acterized by extensive and indiscriminate massacres. Measuring the
reality of any ancient massacre, however, tends to be difficult in the
absence of sufficient archaeological or documentary data. This article
integrates conquest process theory, literary evidence, and data from
substantial new archaeological work to explore the motivation and
nature of the Mongol invasion and its consequences, with a specific
focus on rural settlements on the Great Hungarian Plain.
Introduction
Scholarly examinations of forceful conquest in the pre-modern world depend
heavily on a biased documentary record, one that is mostly narrative, and typically
Attila Gyucha is an archaeologist at the Field Museum of Natural History. He has directed archae-
ological fieldwork projects in Hungary and participated in scientific programs in Albania, Greece,
and the Philippines. His edited volume, Coming Together: Comparative Approaches to Population
Aggregation and Early Urbanization (2019), concentrates on the origins and development of prehis-
toric aggregated and early urban settlements from a comparative perspective. Wayne E. Lee is the
Dowd Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina. He is the author of
Waging War: Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History (2016) and Barbarians and Brothers:
Anglo-American Warfare, 1500–1865 (2011), among many other works in world and early Modern
Atlantic history. He also has extensive field experience as an archaeologist and is co-author of the
prize-winning Light and Shadow: Isolation and Interaction in the Shala Valley of Northern Albania
(2013). Zoltán Rózsa is a field archaeologist and the former director of the Gyula Nagy Regional
Museum in Orosháza, Hungary. He specializes in the Roman, Migration, and Árpádian periods
on the Great Hungarian Plain. His publications focus on the study of material culture and archi-
tecture, exploring the interplay between movements of peoples, ideas, and commodities and their
impacts on sociopolitical change in Eastern Hungary.
The Journal of Military History 83 (October 2019): 1021-1066.
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 1021
GYUCHA, LEE, & RÓZSA
generated or supervised by members of the elite.1 This general truism is especially

relevant in descriptions of the transition from military “victory” to the political
consolidation thereof, either in the last stages of true force-on-force warfare (for
example, the storming of a city-state’s citadel) or in the post-victory process of
distributing forces around the territory as garrisons.
These moments—the final storm, the last battle, and the initial imposition of
armed rule—were fraught with consequences for the defeated population. Death,
displacement, or enslavement were all possibilities, or the victor might simply
demand submission and obedience. Elite-produced narrative sources, however,
whether produced by the victors or vanquished, could have a variety of reasons to
dramatize, diminish, or exaggerate those consequences. It is likely, for example,
that a defeated survivor’s narrative claiming the death of “everyone” could merely
have meant the deaths of a significant slice of the ruling class, without reference
to or concern with the wider laboring population.
Furthermore, in most instances of pre-modern conquest, we lack before-and-
after land and population registers. Historians of this era are usually unable to use
non-narrative documentary records to accurately assess the extent of destruction
and death associated with conquest. A few examples do exist, however, and they
are increasingly the subject of intense scholarly re-examination of how conquest
shaped subjugated landscapes and populations.2
These efforts at understanding the processes and implications of conquest are
even more complicated in intercultural conquests, such as when the steppe invaded
the sown, the sown invaded the steppe, or when European empires invaded the
New World. In such cases, the problem of post-victory political consolidation was
complicated by more than mere cultural “difference”; it extended to the root nature
of the contending societies’ differing systems of subsistence, wealth production,
and social stratification. Those root differences necessarily generated different
meanings and functions for “conquest.” In these instances, important questions
1. We are thankful to László Paja and Zsolt Bernert for the analysis of the human bones,
and Beáta Tugya for the faunal analysis and her assistance in understanding patterns in the
assemblages. Also, we thank the excavators of sites related to the Mongol invasion for the pro-
vision of publications and additional information, including Zsolt Gallina, Gyöngyi Gulyás,
Szabolcs Rosta, Gábor Szörényi, Gábor Serlegi, Gábor Wilhelm, and Mária Wolf. Key help also
came from Peter Lorge, Timothy May, Zsolt Pinke, Rhonda Lee, Beatrix F. Romhányi, Csaba
Tóth, Szabolcs Felföldi, and the anonymous reviewers from the Journal of Military History. Fi-
nally, we are also grateful to Dorottya Kékegyi, Anikó Tihanyi, Zoltán Bodnár, and Danielle J.
Riebe for their help with the illustrations.
2. Key examples include the transfer of large parts of Greece from the Byzantines to the Ot-
tomans to the Venetians and then back to the Ottomans again. Each of those regimes maintained
fairly precise registers of populations by village. See Rebecca Mears Seifried, “Community Orga-
nization and Imperial Expansion in a Rural Landscape: The Mani Peninsula (AD 1000–1821)”
(Ph.D. Diss., University of Illinois at Chicago, 2016); Fariba Zarinebaf, John Bennet, and Jack L.
Davis, eds., A Historical and Economic Geography of Ottoman Greece: The Southwestern Morea in the
18th Century (Princeton, N.J.: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2005).
1022  THE JOURNAL OF

The Mongol Conquest of Hungary
include: What role did population destruction or absorption or displacement play

in the means and goals of conquest for states? For nomads? And why would one
course be chosen over another? Also, what happened when two very different
notions of conquest clashed?
This article addresses these questions by combining a new theory of conquest
processes with detailed archaeological evidence from one episode of attempted
conquest, in this case of nomads against a territorial state. One author has been
working on a comprehensive theory of conquest, focusing on the role of military
force in the immediate wake of claimed victory. The other two have engaged in
the study of destruction sites likely generated by the Mongol invasion of Hungary
in 1241–42.
Archaeological data offer an opportunity to refine our understanding of
all the issues and questions raised thus far. Archaeology has long been used to
examine longue durée changes in post-conquest societies: How much did daily life
change in Anglo-Saxon villages after the Norman conquest?3 Or, in what ways
did native Illyrians’ lives change when first the Greeks colonized their coast and
then later the Romans invaded and conquered the interior?4 Archaeology can
also, however, illuminate the more immediate role and consequences of force in
post-battle consolidation through the study of massacre and/or destruction sites.
We begin with a general schema for understanding conquest processes,
especially between territorial states and nomadic tribal societies, who operated
within fundamentally different subsistence and wealth production systems.
We then carefully juxtapose the textual record of the Mongol invasion of the
Hungarian Kingdom in 1241–42 with specific archaeological evidence from
that era. In addition to a detailed site case study, we provide an overview of
how recent excavation results from settlements, rural sites in particular, relate
to contemporaneous literary accounts of the campaign. We also use this same
evidentiary base to assess Mongol raiding tactics and the responses of the local
population, which are then tied to the goals, process, and aftermath of the Mongol
campaign against Hungary.
A Theory of Conquest Consolidation: The Four Pillars

Discussions of pre-industrial conquest are normally framed around the
hierarchical agricultural state, with each state typically warring with a like state for
some form of territorial control or concession. Since wealth production primarily
depended on expansive territorial control, tapped via some form of taxation, “conquest”
meant achieving access to that production, either via direct control or indirectly
through submission and tribute. And while the military campaigns themselves might
be inflected by key transit points for wealth, such as ports, market towns, or the
3. Dawn M. Hadley and Christopher Dyer, eds., The Archaeology of the 11th Century: Conti-
nuities and Transformations (New York: Routledge, 2017).
4. Michael L. Galaty, Memory and Nation Building: From Ancient Times to the Islamic State
(Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018)
MILITARY HISTORY  1023

actual physical residences of the elite, the ultimate goal of conquest was some form of
territorial rule, usually over a new population who continued to work the land.5
In this state-centric environment, we can identify three basic categories of
conquest wielded against other states (see Table 1):
1. Mass population removal or enslavement accompanied by the execution
or exile of the elite. This could be either enslavement and removal to the victor’s
home territory or forced migration to leave the territory vacant as a buffer or for
colonization.
2. “Tributary,” in which the elite leadership submitted or was co-opted, with
or without actual combat having occurred, choosing to become a vassal to the
conqueror, or sometimes forced to accept a new puppet ruler. The native elite
continued to rule and maintained fundamentally intact their existing system of
rule (bureaucracy) and their military forces, albeit now at least partly in service
of the victor. The income from such a conquest might be less than that of
provincialization, the next option, but it was easier and cheaper to achieve and
maintain (at least initially).
3. “Provincialization,” in which the defeated elite was wholly or partially
removed and replaced by a ruling elite from the conqueror’s ranks. This new
ruling class owed loyalty to their home state and arranged for tribute or taxation
to be delivered accordingly. Provincialization might impose a new bureaucracy,
but it almost always imposed some form of latent military force to control the
population.
Naturally, these methods were used in varying combinations, depending on
the victorious state’s calculation of risks and rewards. Indeed, we must list a fourth
type, perhaps the most common of all, in which the losing side surrendered a slice
of territory to the victor to bring an end to an expensive or increasingly dangerous
conflict. In this case, the defeated state remained fully autonomous, but the surrendered
territory was usually subjected to provincialization by the victor. Furthermore, much
actual warfare had little hope of outright conquest, and instead sought the short term
rewards of plunder or simply to exert political pressure through destruction, but since
such techniques might lead to a form of submission or the surrender of some limited
territory, they are folded into this broader model of conquest. Finally, these conquest
methods also could occur in succession. For example, a losing state might submit, thus
becoming a tributary vassal or client, but then later rebel, leading to a fuller conquest
and provincialization, a pattern common to Assyria, Egypt, China, Rome, and many
other expansive states in the pre-industrial world. The larger point is that each of
these methods of consolidating conquest was designed to capture labor and territorial
resources from the defeated state.
5. Note that here we are referring to the ultimate goal of conquest, not of war. Much warfare
involved more limited goals than outright territorial conquest. John Landers, The Field and the
Forge: Population, Production, and Power in the Pre-Industrial West (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003), esp. 203, 230, 240. See also the insightful analysis in Clifford J. Rogers, “Medieval
Strategy and the Economics of Conquest,” Journal of Military History 82 (2018): 709–38.

Table 1. Conquest types in war between sedentary agricultural states
Each of these types of conquest required some form of consolidation to make

it “stick.” This problem of consolidation has traditionally been of less interest
to military historians, who tend to focus on the fighting.6 In seeking to build a
generalizable theory, we posit that victors in the pre-industrial world secured the
long-term benefits of military success through a combination of four “pillars”:
legitimacy, sanctity, bureaucracy, and the deployment of force in a security or
“latent” mode. We will touch on all four pillars in this study, but the focus will be
on the nature and role of latent force.
In the long term, legitimacy, sanctity, and bureaucracy are cheaper and more
efficient pillars of rule than force but establishing any of them among a newly
6. Although case studies exist, for example of the Norman conquest or of European colo-
nists in the New World, there are in fact very few general works on the subject. Key entries
include: Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, vol.1, A History of Power From the Beginning
to AD 1760, new ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), xii–xiii; Nadia Schadlow,
War and the Art of Governance: Consolidating Combat Success into Political Victory (Washington:
Georgetown University Press, 2017); Peter M. R. Stirk, A History of Military Occupation From
1792 to 1914 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016); David Day, Conquest: How Societ-
ies Overwhelm Others (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Landers, Field and the Forge.
W.E. Lee is publishing a more elaborate version of this theory as “Conquer, Extract, and Perhaps
Govern: Organic Economies, Logistics, and Violence in the Preindustrial World,” in A Violent
World? A Global History of Early Modern Violence and its Restraint, ed. Erica Charters, Marie
Houllemare, and Peter H. Wilson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, forthcoming).

conquered population represented a significant challenge. Creating a legitimate

heritable or transferable dynasty beyond the immediate “rights of the victor”
required loyalty work. One key method for loyalty work was some form of sanctity
manipulation, either claiming a divine connection or making religious concessions
to the defeated population to encourage acceptance of the new regime. There
were many paths to legitimacy and sanctity, but all might require generations
of cultivation. Bureaucracy was often readier to hand. In a tributary system, the
local bureaucracy simply remained in place. Even a full provincialization often
maintained existing forms of government, selectively replaced key senior officials,
and then manipulated or co-opted local officials to continue their work for the
new ruler. This kind of bureaucratic transition stabilized rule by leaving in place
familiar processes of government, a truth attested time and again in the imperial
conquests of the ancient Middle East and even more so in dynastic China.7
The readiest pillar to consolidating control in the immediate wake of conquest,
however, was some form of latent force management and distribution. Military
forces, no longer actively fighting, provided a visible and real guarantee against
continued resistance or future rebellion. In general, the precise ways that latent force
was composed, used, and distributed depended on two key factors: the specific type
of conquest that occurred, and the military logistical system that in turn was derived
from the normal demographic operating environment of the conquering society.
The ability to maintain latent force in being, generally distributed on the countryside
as garrisons, often intended to support the collection of taxes, was a fundamental
component of state-based conquest. Nomadic societies, even when stratified and
hierarchical, including the early stages of the Mongol Empire in the first half of
the thirteenth century, however, generally lacked that capacity (for reasons explored
below), and therefore sought different forms of gain from victory.
The case study here involves a Mongol invasion of Hungary in the early 1240s,
at a time when the Mongols were increasingly imperial and sought territorial
rule, but, as we will see, they also continued to operate partly according to their
7. Marc Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323 BC, 2nd ed.
(Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2007), 122; Amélie Kuhrt, “The Achaemenid Persian Empire (c.
550–c. 330 BCE): Continuities, Adaptations, Transformations,” in Empires: Perspectives From
Archaeology and History, ed. Susan E. Alcock, Terence N. D’Altroy, Kathleen D. Morrison, and
Carla M. Sinopoli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 119. This process varied in
China, especially in transitions to rule by “alien” dynasties (usually steppe invaders), but certain
traditions of governance remained at the core. Wolfram Eberhard, Conquerors and Rulers: So-
cial Forces in Medieval China, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 64; Victoria Tin-Bor Hui, War and
State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005), 98–99; Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, eds., The Cambridge History of
Ancient China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 1012–19; Herbert Franke and
Denis C. Twitchett, eds., The Cambridge History of China, vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States,
907–1368 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 587–97; Denis C. Twitchett, The
Cambridge History of China, vol. 3, Sui and T’ang China, 589–906 AD, Part One (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008), 161.

more normal mode of “conquest,” as practiced among tribes out on the steppe and
which was not designed for territorial rule. We need to consider what forms of
conquest were the norm for the Mongols, even as they were trying to shift them
to the forms used by states that we have just described.
Conquest Among Steppe Nomadic Pastoral Tribes

The subsistence economy and political structures of nomadic pastoralists
differed markedly from those of agricultural states, and their military logistics rested
on very different foundations, and therefore so did the possibilities and requirements
of latent force. Specific locations were relatively less important as neither agricultural
surplus nor political power accumulated in any one location on the steppe—at least
until a steppe tribal confederation acquired imperial levels of success and conquered
sedentary states. Within intra-tribal conflicts, however, there were no strategic
shortcuts of attacking cities or key transit points for surplus goods; one had to attack
the people themselves, and one generally sought to incorporate them. As Bat-Ochir
Bold noted, although the chronicles “often relate of one tribe conquering another
and taking the conquered nutug [pasture] into its possession, . . . the basic motivation
for gaining possession of nutug was to use the conquered people as potential soldiers
and not as labourers.”8 To be sure, there were some sacred locations and rivers within
the otherwise arid steppe that could be key regional resources. It was no coincidence
that the Göktürks, the Uighurs, the Mongols, and possibly even the Xiongnu all
built their imperial capitals centuries apart, but within a few kilometers of each
other, in the Orkhon River valley in central Mongolia.9 Perhaps most importantly,
there were some key passes over mountains, or routes around deserts that rendered
certain movements more predictable, and the migration routes of any given clan
between their seasonal pastures were known. Even so, as we will see, garrisoning
such locations was out of the question.
Within this economy, “conquest” meant capturing people and their flocks,
with varying fates for the defeated elites, meaning the clan leaders, their immediate
male kin, and their closest followers (or nöker in Mongolian). Table 2 summarizes
the types. The first three are all simply variants of incorporating a defeated people,
differing primarily in the extremity of how the victor treats the losers—a choice
determined by the probability of successfully incorporating the adult men and
influenced by the history of their rivalry and the ambitions of the victor.
8. Bat-Ochir Bold, Mongolian Nomadic Society: A Reconstruction of the “Medieval” History of

Mongolia (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 42.
9. The first three are well known. See Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410,
2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2018), 35. For the new work on the Xiongnu site, just north of
Karakorum, see http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/16/c_136900293.htm#0-fbook-1
-94388-b182d7286068ff4101843e17368e4b10 accessed 17 March 2018, and clarifications here:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=36296 accessed 27 January 2019; http://gb.oversea.
cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?filename=NMWC201502004&DBName=cjfqtotal&dbcode=
cjfq accessed 27 January 2019.

Table 2. “Conquest” types in war among steppe tribes
The first type, narrow decapitation and co-option, was generally preferred.
In it, the victor killed a thin band of the elite, perhaps just the chief and his
immediate kin, in addition to whoever might have died in battle, and then
forcibly co-opted the remainder of the population, including most of the adult
men and all of their dependents. Doing so immediately enlarged the military
power of the victor, since organizationally and logistically it was relatively simple
and culturally expected for an army of nomadic horsemen to integrate defeated
nomadic horsemen. This process, however, set up an odd paradox within the
framework of consolidation thus far presented in this article: unable (as we
will see) to establish territorial garrisons to consolidate control, steppe victors
sought to confirm the loyalty of the losers through further success—thus not
latent force, but active force. Only new victories provided the plunder, herds, and
pasture new followers expected. Under these forms of conquest, the snowballing
of additional force from success was easy but also created its own demands for
more victory. In essence, legitimacy required active, not latent force.
The next two types, “decapitate and subordinate” or “eliminate,” killed much
wider swathes of the adult male population and were therefore less useful for
snowballing force. They were chosen based on specific enmities or the need to
assuage the plunder demands of other already incorporated groups. Taking in
women and herds met those needs while eliminating potential threats of revenge

down the road. This option also became attractive when fighting sedentary peoples
not as readily incorporated into the victorious army.
The final two types met similar needs and merely arose from different
operational capabilities. Small-scale clan raids netted plunder and people but
lacked the kind of decisive outcome of a major battle. Such raids were the normal
pattern of war, and only infrequently tipped the regional balance of power among
the tribes. Having said that, however, it is important to note that it was success
in small raids that built a young leader’s reputation and led to further and further
confederation through the other type: voluntary bandwagoning.
It was through such small raids and the gradual acquisition of loyal followers,
blood brothers, and a powerful nöker that Temujin slowly and painfully rose to become
the head of a massive tribal confederation that became an empire under his new title
of Chinggis Khan. The more powerful such a leader became, the more other tribes
would voluntarily sign on to his cause, hoping to reap the rewards of further success.
Its political fragility remained, however, and holding it together required the loyalty
work embedded in the three cultural pillars of political consolidation.10 Legitimacy
and sanctity via proof of bloodline, success in battle, and proper adherence to key rituals
(and in the Mongols’ case a flexibility toward the religions of defeated populations)
were central to maintaining control, but neither bureaucracy nor latent force played
much of a role.11 Even those defeated peoples who the sources say became “slaves”
of the victors (bo ‘ol in Mongolian),occupied a more complex status than is usually
associated with that word. They were subordinated and incorporated, but with a
future that could include advancement and even elite status, meaning that latent
force played little role in enforcing obedience from a enslaved class.12 Successful
nomadic conquerors could and did impose rule over others; their societies could and
did stratify along lines of wealth, bloodline, and position; but the mechanisms of
rule differed from the territorial forms of agricultural states.13 Among other things,
10. This characterization of Chinggis Khan’s rise and the various types of victory consolida-
tion in Table 2 are based on a close reading of every incident of “victory” in the so-called Secret
History and accords with David Morgan’s general interpretation. See Urgunge Onon, trans.,
The Secret History of the Mongols: The Life and Times of Chinggis Khan (Richmond, U.K.: Curzon
Press, 2001), 106–7, 111–14, 120–21, 123, 126, 129, 131–32; David Morgan, The Mongols, 2nd
ed. (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2007), 34.
11. Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 47, summarizes the basics of the Mongol attitude
toward religion.
12. The issue of “slavery” among nomads is complex, but see Tatyana D. Skrynnikova, “Relations
of Domination and Submission: Political Practice in the Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan,” in Im-
perial Statecraft: Political Forms and Techniques of Governance in Inner Asia, Sixth–Twentieth Centuries,
ed. David Sneath (Cambridge: Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit, 2006), 85–116, esp. 93.
13. See David Sneath, “Imperial Statecraft: Arts of Power on the Steppe,” in Imperial State-
craft, 1–22; David Sneath, The Headless State: Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, & Misrepresenta-
tions of Nomadic Inner Asia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Sneath would prefer
discarding “tribe” and even “tribal confederation” as descriptive terms, but we believe they retain
value within this comparative context.

bureaucracy on the steppe was minimalist at best—although successful steppe

conquerors of sedentary lands quickly adopted sedentary bureaucracies to serve
them, hints of which would appear even during the short invasion of Hungary.
What should be immediately clear from each of these conquest types, however,
is that none required the imposition of latent force in the form of garrisons either
to establish order or to extract resources. This fundamental similarity among all
these nomadic conquest types reflected the reality of the nomadic organic economy.
For large forces of nomadic warriors to remain together required that they have
access to enormous amounts of pasture. The ecology and the mathematics of this
problem are complex and still unclear, but a relatively moderate estimate suggests
that each soldier could subsist from a string of five horses and one sheep for a
year, and those animals—an unsustainable minimum that does not provide for the
stock to reproduce—would need 208 acres of steppe pasture.14
This constraint immediately rules out concentrated steppe warrior forces
remaining in a single location as a garrison. There were also significant operational
effects created by these needs, including during the opening stages of the invasion of
Hungary in 1241, as the Mongol armies deliberately left a buffer zone of untouched
forage east of Hungary as part of preparing for their eventual invasion.15 These forage
14. Both John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck, based on their travels into the
deep parts of the Mongol Empire, wrote that meat was reserved for the winter season, and during
late spring, summer, and fall mares’ milk was the primary food. They also indicate that quite a few
men could eat from a single sheep; Rubruck even specified 100 men for one sheep. Christopher
Dawson, ed., Mission to Asia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 17, 63, 97–98. It was
probably somewhat more mixed than that, with hunting as a supplement especially in summer and
fall, and with fermented milk still available in early winter. A calorie count would seem to confirm
these contemporary observations. One mare can provide 0.6 gallons/day at ca. 2,700 calories. One
pound of mutton is ca. 1,340 calories, and one sheep could produce 120 0.5 lb servings (or more). If
one considers the need for horses to carry burdens as well as produce milk, this math arrives at the
textually attested warrior’s string of five horses plus one sheep as providing 120 days of meat and
280 days of mare’s milk (the meat being shared). As for the acreage requirement, this is a complex
issue that we will explore in greater detail elsewhere, but starting points for these calculations are:
Denis Sinor, “Horse and Pasture in Inner Asian History,” Oriens Extremus 19 (1972): 182; Herold
J. Wiens, “Geographical Limitations to Food Production in the Mongolian Peoples Republic,” An-
nals of the American Geographers 41, no. 4 (1951): 348–69; John Masson Smith, Jr., “Hülegü Moves
West: High Living and Heartbreak on the Road to Baghdad,” in Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan,
ed. Linda Komaroff (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 111–34; John Masson Smith, Jr., “Ayn Jalut: Mamluk
Success or Mongol Failure?,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44, no. 2 (1984): 307–45; David O.
Morgan, “The Mongol Armies in Persia,” Islam 56 (1979): 81–96; Zsolt Pinke, László Ferenczi,
Beatrix F. Romhányi, József Laszlovszky, and Stephen Plow, “Climate of Doubt: A Re-Evaluation
of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s Environmental Hypothesis for the Mongol Withdrawal from Hun-
gary, 1242 CE,” Scientific Reports 7 (2017): 1–6; Ulf Büntgen and Nicola Di Cosmo, “Climatic and
Environmental Aspects of the Mongol Withdrawal from Hungary in 1242 CE,” Scientific Reports
6 (2016): 1–9; Rudi P. Lindner, “Nomadism, Horses and Huns,” Past & Present 92 (1981): 3–19.
15. Master Roger, “Epistle to the Sorrowful Lament Upon the Destruction of the Kingdom
of Hungary by the Tatars,” in Gesta Hungarorum [The Deeds of the Hungarians] Epistola in Misera-

requirements for a concentrated stationary army persisted for Mongol forces deep
into the imperial period. As late as 1262, Chinggis Khan’s grandson Hülegü, ruling
the Ilkhanate, described in a letter to Louis IX of France how their custom was to
retreat to the “cooler places of the snowy mountains in the heat of summer,” noting
specifically that “the greater part of the food and fodder had been consumed” and
thus his decision to “return for a while to the mountains of Greater Armenia.”16 With
time, as the Mongols settled their conquests, they shifted to relying on conquered
sedentary infantry forces to serve as latent force garrisons on their behalf.
This inability to garrison with purely nomadic forces reinforced the demand
for active force for successful rule on the steppe. To the extent that there was a role
for latent force, it was reputational. The ability and willingness of Mongols to return
and punish resistance or rebellion acted as a kind of latent force check on rebellion.
Chinggis Khan himself demonstrated the principle after forcing the submission
of the Xi Xia dynasty (the Tanguts) in northwest China. Having forced their
submission, he expected obedience, but did not impose garrisons. For some years
thereafter, the Tanguts supplied auxiliary forces and even warred against Mongolia’s
Jin enemies to the east. Sometime in 1217/1218, however, the Tanguts ceased to
cooperate with the Mongols and apparently refused a request for troops, probably to
support the coming Mongol campaign against Khwarezm. Chinggis Khan vowed
revenge, and when the Khwarezm campaign ended he returned and utterly destroyed
both the dynasty and the state itself in 1226, including massacring wide swathes
of the population.17 For Chinggis Khan, controlling Xi Xia’s territory was less an
issue than affirming the reputational latent force of the Mongols. In Hungary in
1241–42, as we will see, the narrative and archaeological evidence suggests that the
Mongols approached the region through that same lens: conquest in Hungary was
likely never long contemplated as an exercise in direct territorial control. Punishing
the kingdom, and the refugee Cumans (or Kipchaks)18 it was protecting, would
bile Carmen Super Destructione Regni Hungarie Per Tartaros Facta [Epistle to the Sorrowful Lament
Upon the Destruction of the Kingdom of Hungary by the Tatars], trans. and ed. János Bak, Martyn
Rady, and László Veszprémy (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010), 165.
16. Paul Meyvaert, “An Unknown Letter of Hulagu, Il-Khan of Persia, to King Louis IX
of France,” Viator 11 (1980): 258. The quotes here are from the English translation in Malcolm
Barber and Keith Bate, eds., Letters from the East: Crusaders, Pilgrims and Settlers in the 12th–13th
Centuries (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2010), 159. John Masson Smith, Jr., hypothesizes that the
Mongols calculated their pasture requirements quite accurately in advance of campaigning in a
region. “Mongol Manpower and Persian Population,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of
the Orient 18, no. 3 (1975): 280–81.
17. Paul Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 104–5,
140–41; Carl Frederik Sverdrup, The Mongol Conquests: The Military Operations of Genghis Khan
and Sübe’etei (Solihull, U.K.: Helion, 2017), 98–99, 166–67; Franke and Twitchett, Cambridge
History of China, 6:208–13.
18. Various ethonyms were used to describe this population, including Polovtsy, Kipchak,
Cuman, Valwen, and Cuni. In this paper, following the self-appellation of the Cuman-Kipchak
immigrants in medieval Hungary (kuman), we use the term Cumans. See György Györffy, “A kun

affirm the legitimacy of Mongol rule over other nomadic peoples and would also
affirm the latent force potential of their ability to punish.19
The Problem of Massacres and Archaeology

The key in both preceding discussions of state-based and nomadic-based
conquest is the victors’ treatment of conquered populations within the different
forms or types of consolidation. Certain types of conquest should produce
dramatic archaeological signatures. The narrative sources are filled with tales of
complete massacres or complete enslavements of populations. When Chinggis
Khan defeated the Tatars during the wars in Mongolia accompanying his rise to
power, he reportedly said: “From early days the Tatars have destroyed our ancestors
and fathers. [We must] gain vengeance on behalf of our fathers. . . . Let them be
killed. We will measure them against a linchpin and kill off [those who are taller
than the linchpin] until all have died. We will make slaves of the survivors. We will
divide them among ourselves, some here, some there.”20
There are plenty of similar claims of extensive massacre and enslavement
among states. In Classical Greece, Thucydides described the Athenian destruction
of Melos: “the Melians were induced to surrender at discretion. The Athenians
thereupon put to death all who were of military age, and made slaves of the
women and children. They then colonised the island, sending thither five hundred
settlers of their own.”21 There were any number of Roman campaigns with similar
consequences, not least the destruction of and slaughter in Corinth in 146 BC:
“The majority of those found in it [Corinth] were put to the sword by the Romans,
but the women and children Mummius sold into slavery.”22 As Robert Kallet-
Marx points out, the Romans treated Corinth “fully in accordance with traditional
és komán népnév eredetének kérdéséhez,” in A magyarság keleti elemei, ed. György Györffy (Buda-
pest: Gondolat, 1990), 200–219; László Keller, “Qïpčaq, kuman, kun. Megjegyzések a polovecek
önelnevezéséhez,” in Nomád népvándorlások, magyar honfoglalás, ed. Szabolcs Felföldi and Balázs
Sinkovics (Budapest: Balassi, 2001), 138–47; István Vásáry, Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military
in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185–1365 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 4–12;
Szilvia Kovács, A kunok története a mongol hódításig (Budapest: Balassi, 2014), 11–26.
19. Timothy May argues for a generalized Mongol “tsunami” strategy, in which an invading
wave swept through the core enemy territory, but then also went beyond it like a cresting wave,
devastating surrounding regions to create a buffer zone around the core target territory. Timothy
May, “The Mongol Art of War and the Tsunami Strategy,” Golden Horde Civilization 8 (2015):
33–34. This generalization seems compatible with the framework suggested here.
20. Onon, Secret History, 129–30. To be clear, there are just as many examples from that
period of fully incorporating defeated peoples with only a limited execution of key familial elites.
See Morgan, The Mongols, 54.
21. Thucydides 5.114–116, translation in Thucydides, trans. Benjamin Jowett (Oxford: Clar-
endon Press of Oxford University Press, 1881).
22. Paus. 7.16.7–8, Pausanias Description of Greece, 4 vols., trans. W. H. S. Jones and H. A.
Ormerod (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1918).

Roman terroristic practice toward communities that refused surrender.”23 Despite

these sorts of narratives, which are far from uncommon, archaeological evidence
for massacres on such a scale is rare. In fact, regarding the example of Corinth,
which has been extensively excavated, the evidence for the Roman destruction is
surprisingly scattered, and no profusion of bodies has been found.24
This general absence of evidence may simply reflect the likely fate of unburied
bodies in such a situation, or indicate that bodies could have been buried initially
on a battlefield and then reburied later at familial or sacred locations.25 But it
remains a general truism that battlefields do not regularly reveal their dead. The
vast majority of archaeological studies of battle sites are topographical analyses
informed by weapon/projectile distribution.26 There are technical and historical
reasons for this difficulty, and the bodies may be there waiting to be found, but
thus far the record is thin.27 Even were that not so, the analysis of battlefield
23. Robert Kallet-Marx, Hegemony to Empire: The Development of the Roman Imperium in
the East from 148 to 62 B.C. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 84.; Cf. William
V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 BC (Oxford: Clarendon Press of
Oxford University Press, 1979), 50–53.
24. James Wiseman, “Corinth and Rome I: 228 B.C.–A.D. 267,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang
der Römischen Welt T.2, Bd.7, Hlbd.1, ed. Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase (Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter, 1979), 493–96.
25. This is Anne Curry and Glenn Foard’s conclusion about several medieval battlefields in
“Where are the Dead of Medieval Battles?: A Preliminary Survey,” Journal of Conflict Archaeology
11, nos. 2–3 (2016): 61–77, esp. 68.
26. For example, Richard Allan Fox, Jr., Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle: The
Little Big Horn Reexamined (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993); Peter J. Foss, The
Field of Redemore: The Battle of Bosworth, 1485 (Newtown Linford, U.K.: Kairos Press, 1998);
Tim L. Sutherland and Armin R. Schmidt, “Towton, 1461. An Integrated Approach to Battle-
field Archaeology,” Landscapes 4, no. 2 (2003): 15–25. Most battle site reports in the Journal of
Conflict Archaeology also follow this model, as do most site reports in Fields of Conflict: Battle-
field Archaeology from the Roman Empire to the Korean War, 2 vols., ed. Douglas Scott, Lawrence
Babits, and Charles Haecker (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2007).
27. Curry and Foard, “Where are the Dead,” 62; Glenn Foard, Battlefield Archaeology of
the English Civil War (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 2012), 10, 35; Glenn Foard and
Richard Morris, The Archaeology of English Battlefields: Conflict in the Pre-Industrial Landscape
(York: Council for British Archaeology, 2012), 30–34. Interesting exceptions include: Gundula
Lidke, Detlef Jantzen, Sebastian Lorenz, and Thomas Terberger, “The Bronze Age Battlefield in
the Tollense Valley, Northeast Germany: Conflict Scenario Research,” in Conflict Archaeology:
Materialities of Collective Violence from Prehistory to Late Antiquity, ed. Manuel Fernández-Götz
and Nico Roymans (London: Routledge, 2017), 61–68; Susanne Wilbers-Rost, “Total Roman
Defeat at the Battle of Varus (9 AD),” in Scott, Babits, and Haecker, Fields of Conflict, 127; Nico
Roymans, “A Roman Massacre in the Far North: Caesar’s Annihilation of the Tencteri and Usi-
petes in the Dutch River Area,” in Fernández-Götz and Roymans, Conflict Archaeology, 167–81;
Catrine L. Jarman, Martin Biddle, Tom Higham, and Christopher Bronk Ramsey, “The Viking
Great Army in England: New Dates from the Repton Charnel,” Antiquity 92, no. 361 (2018):

dead promises little in respect to understanding conquest processes, as in most

cases those dead are the ones whom we would expect: soldiers killed in the course
of battle or pursuit. Sieges of citadels or hillforts might produce a more mixed
population of unburied or mass-buried men, women, and children, but there are
not many archaeological examples yet produced. Destruction layers are relatively
common, but deposits of bodies less so.28
This brief and selected review of archaeological evidence for massacre suggests
three possibilities. One is that even in the face of overwhelming documentary
evidence for widespread massacre as part of, or in the wake of victory, a corresponding
archaeological signature may not exist. Second, the archaeological evidence for
conflict can be clear (e.g., a destruction layer), but the evidence for massacre or even
of systematic killing is less permanent in the archaeological record. And third, where
such a massacre signature does occur, it speaks powerfully to the victor’s choice to
use some form of indiscriminate killing as a part of victory consolidation. Indeed, it
was likely worse than the archaeological evidence suggests. In general, we argue that
pre-industrial agricultural states expanding their territorial control usually needed
labor for that territory, and therefore only rarely resorted to deliberate indiscriminate
massacre. Pastoral nomadic conquerors, however, applied a fundamentally different
conquest strategy in order to plunder new territories primarily for goods and had a
long tradition of either absorbing or eliminating defeated populations.
The Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241–42 constitutes an intriguing case
study with regard to nomadic strategy. During the first half of the thirteenth
century, the Mongols were still in the early stages of becoming a sedentary imperial
power interested in controlling and taxing a sedentary population.29 Many of their
183–99; Bengt Thordeman, Armour from the Battle of Wisby 1361 (n.p.: Chivalry Bookshelf, 2001
[1939]); Gábor Bertók and Balázs Polgár, “A mohácsi csatatér és a középkori Földvár falu ré-
gészeti kutatása,” Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 124, no. 3 (2011): 919–28. Towton is discussed in
Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from the Battle of Towton AD 1461, ed. Veronica
Fiorato, Anthea Boylston, and Christopher Knüsel (Oxford: Oxbow, 2000).
28. One example is the Bronze Age site of Leviah: Yitzhak Paz, “‘Raiders on the Storm’:
The Violent Destruction of Leviah, an Early Bronze Age Urban Centre in the Southern Levant,”
Journal of Conflict Archaeology 6, no. 1 (2011): 3–21. Some mass body deposits are recorded in
Joachim Wahl and Iris Trautmann, “The Neolithic Massacre at Talheim: A Pivotal Find in Con-
flict Archaeology,” in Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones: Neolithic Violence in a European Perspective,
ed. Rick Schulting and Linda Fibiger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 77–100; Maria
Teschler-Nicola, “The Early Neolithic Site Asparn/Schletz (Lower Austria): Anthropological
Evidence of Interpersonal Violence,” in Schulting and Fibiger, Sticks, Stones, 101–20; Christian
Meyer, Christian Lohr, Detlef Gronenborn, and Kurt W. Alt, “The Massacre Mass Grave of
Schöneck-Kilianstädten Reveals New Insights into Collective Violence in Early Neolithic Cen-
tral Europe,” PNAS 112, no. 36 (2015): 11217–22; Andrew Curry, “Öland, Sweden. Spring, A.D.
480,” Archaeology Magazine 69, no. 2 (March 2016).
29. For a more general discussion of this transition from steppe imperial confederation to
ruler of sedentary lands, which arguably occurred during Ögödei’s reign, see Jackson, The Mongols
and the West, 42, 48.

traditional steppe methods of rule were clearly still in play, and their continuing
heavy reliance on horse-mounted forces limited their ability to impose a garrison
system of territorial control. In the terms of our model, they were still relying on
the power of retribution as their form of latent force; indeed the invasion itself may
have been motivated, at least partly, by the need to take retribution for the flight of
the nomadic Cumans into Hungary (see below). The archaeological record of the
invasion in the 1240s can speak to and supplement the historic record in clarifying
what their intentions for the region might have been.
The Hungarian Kingdom and the Mongol Invasions

After invading the eastern European steppe region in previous years, Batu Khan’s
army advanced toward the eastern Carpathians in the winter of 1240 and 1241.30
Although the Hungarian Kingdom was the most powerful state in central and eastern
Europe at that time, the Mongol campaign found the realm in a state of political
crisis.31 First, from the middle of the 1230s, King Béla IV of the Árpád Dynasty (AD
1000–1301) had embarked on a program of political and economic centralization that
alienated many of the barons and sparked heated internal conflicts.
Meanwhile, and critical to understanding Mongol motivations, in the late
1230s, the Mongols warred with the Cumans, east of the Carpathian Basin.
Mongol expectations for them were clear: the Cumans were Turkic steppe peoples,
whose lifestyle and fighting style perfectly suited them for incorporation into the
expanding Mongol army. The Mongols defeated them in 1239 and many of the
Cumans submitted to Mongol rule, but some 40,000 troops under their khan,
Köten (also Kötöny or Kuthen), fled into Hungary.32 Batu Khan, in a letter to
30. For overviews of the historical background and process of the Mongol invasion of
Hungary in 1241–42, see János B. Szabó, A tatárjárás. A mongol hódítás és Magyarország (Buda-
pest: Corvina, 2010), 111–57; György Györffy, “Bevezetés,” in A tatárjárás emlékezete, ed. Tamás
Katona (Budapest: Magyar Helikon, 1987), 5–29; Gyula Kristó, “A tatárjárás,” in Tatárjárás, ed.
Balázs Nagy (Budapest: Osiris, 2003), 371–83; Tibor Almási, A tizenharmadik század története
(Budapest: Pannonica, 2000), 85–90; Jenő Szűcs, Az utolsó Árpádok (Budapest: Osiris, 1993),
3–32; Csaba Csorba, A tatárjárás (Budapest: Zrínyi, 1991); Jackson, The Mongols and the West,
65–80; Martin Rady, “The Mongol Invasion of Hungary,” Medieval World 3 (1991): 39–46; John
J. Saunders, The History of the Mongol Conquests (London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1971), 73–89.
31. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 133–55; B. Szabó, A tatárjárás, 77–82.
32. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 137, n.7, 164–65, n.3. For relations between the Hun-
garian Kingdom and Cumania, and the process of the migration of Cumans into Hungary,
see András Pálóczi Horváth, Keleti népek a középkori Magyarországon: Besenyők, úzok, ku-
nok és jászok művelődéstörténeti emlékei (Budapest: Pázmány Péter Catholic University and Ar-
chaeolingua, 2014), 71–132; Greg S. Rogers, “An Examination of Historians’ Explanations for
the Mongol Withdrawal from East Central Europe,” East European Quarterly 30, no. 1 (1996):
4, 7–8; Đura Hardi, “Cumans and Mongols in the Region of Srem in 1241–1242: A Discussion
on the Extent of Devastation,” Istrazivanija 27 (2016): 86–88. For Köten, see Szabolcs Polgár,
“Kötöny, kun fejedelem,” in Tanulmányok a középkori magyar történelemről, ed. Sarolta Homonnai,
Ferenc Piti, and Ildikó Tóth (Szeged: JATE Press, 1999), 91–102.

King Béla IV demanding his submission, asserted the emerging Mongol claim to
universal rule but also specifically complained about the Hungarian protection of
the Cumans.33 Furthermore, the fact that the Hungarian Kingdom had extended
its power to Cumania, already defeated by the Mongols, as well as having provided
refuge for the ruling elite of many other eastern European principalities, may have
contributed to the Mongols’ determination to invade.34 Per the model of latent
force introduced earlier, the Mongols felt compelled to maintain their reputation
and launch a punitive offensive.
The Cuman arrival in Hungary also contributed to the political instability
in the realm. As the Cumans had often raided the easternmost settlements of
the Hungarian Kingdom since the eleventh century, the Hungarians mistrusted
the newcomers. This fact and other circumstances—including the belief that the
Cumans were Mongol spies—resulted in the murder of Köten Khan in the city of
Pest in the early spring of 1241. The Cumans quickly retreated from the country
to Bulgaria, during which they defeated multiple Hungarian forces and destroyed
numerous villages in revenge for the death of Köten.35
Hungarian political turbulence and the loss of their nominal Cuman allies
skilled in nomadic warfare meant that when the Mongol army broke into
Hungary in March 1241 their advance forces reached Pest within a few days. The
decisive battle between the armies of King Béla IV and Batu Khan took place
at Muhi, in northern Hungary, in April 1241, where the Mongols defeated the
Hungarian forces. In accordance with the nomadic decapitation model, which
required the removal of a competing figure for ruler, the Mongols pursued the
fleeing Hungarian king, as they previously had with many other rulers, such as
the Grand Prince of Vladimir-Suzdal and his entire family in Russia and the
Khwarezm Shah and his son.36 King Béla IV eventually found safety on an island
near Trau (today Trogir) in Croatia.
After the battle at Muhi, the Mongol troops swept through the country from
multiple directions (Figure 1). Written sources suggest that the degree of destruction
might have varied significantly across the Hungarian Kingdom. The city of Pest and
the surrounding towns and villages east of the Danube, attacked by the main army,
experienced large-scale devastation. Some regions, however, particularly the hilly
areas with fortifications—including some parts of northern Hungary, Transylvania,
and the heart of Transdanubia—were better protected. The extensive destruction on
the Great Hungarian Plain reflected its favorability for fast-moving horse raiders,
its general lack of strong fortified places, and its exposure to the invaders’ repeated
attacks for nearly a year. Along with Mongol raids, subsequent starvation and
epidemics also contributed to the decline of the population on the Plain. By using
33. The letter is reprinted in Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 67.
34. See B. Szabó, A tatárjárás, 112.
35. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 175, 177.
36. For the Mongol emphasis on pursuit of leaders, see Timothy May, The Mongol Art of
War: Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Military System (Yardley, Pa.: Westholme, 2007), 84.

Figure 1: A reconstruction of the movements of Mongol armies in the Hungarian Kingdom in 1241-
42 based on historic sources (after Kristó 2003b), and the location of besieged towns and archaeological
sites with traces of devastation and massacre mentioned in the text. 1: Bugac-Pétermonostora; 2: Cegléd-
Madarászhalom; 3: Csanád; 4: Csanádpalota-Dávid-halom; 5: Csengele-Kecskés; 6: Dunaföldvár-
Ló-hegy; 7: Esztergom; 8: Hejőkeresztúr-Vizekköze; 9: Pereg (?); 10: Kiskunmajsa-Jonathermál Kelet;
11: Kolozsvár; 12: Muhi; 13: Orosháza-Bónum; 14: Onga-Ócsanálos; 15: Pest; 16: Szabolcs-Kisfalud;
17: Szank-Haladás Tsz. II.; 18: Szank-Kápolnahely; 19: Szeged; 20: Tamáshida; 21: Tázlár-
Templomhegy; 22: Várad. [Drawn by Attila Gyucha and Danielle Riebe]

historical accounts, researchers have proposed population loss ranging from zero to
one hundred percent in various parts of the Hungarian Kingdom.37
The Mongols left the country in the spring of 1242. Explanations regarding
this hasty departure focus on the death of the Great Khan, Ögödei, but some
argue for the high level of resistance and the severity of Mongol losses in
Hungary.38 One recent study further suggests that fortifications in Europe caused
fundamental difficulties for the Mongol army in imposing their rule on local,
sedentary populations.39 Timothy May has argued that the invasion of Hungary
followed a standard Mongol conquest pattern, preceded by scouting, accompanied
by diversionary moves into surrounding territory, executed with converging
columns winning a climactic battle, and followed by pursuit of the defeated leader
and waves of raids into adjacent regions.40 Hungary would seem to fit this pattern
of destruction, withdrawal, and a Mongol presumption that they would then rule
this defeated population from a distance. Indeed, the Mongols famously departed
37. For example, Kálmán Szabó, Az alföldi magyar nép művelődéstörténeti emlékei (Budapest:
Országos Magyar Történeti Múzeum, 1938), 12; György Györffy, “A tatárjárás pusztításának nyo-
mai helyneveinkben,” in Emlékkönyv a túrkevei múzeum fennállásának 10. évfordulójára, ed. Lajos
Györffy (Túrkeve: Túrkevei Múzeum, 1961), 35–38; György Györffy, “Magyarország népessége
a honfoglalástól a XIV. század közepéig,” in Magyarország történeti demográfiája. Magyarország
népessége a honfoglalástól 1949-ig, ed. József Kovacsics (Budapest: Közgazdasági és Jogi, 1963),
50; György Györffy, “Bevezetés,” in Katona, A tatárjárás emlékezete, 29–33; Erik Fügedi, “A tatár-
járás demográfiai következményeiről,” in Nagy, Tatárjárás, 498–99; István Szabó, A falurendszer
kialakulása Magyarországon, X–XV. század (Budapest: Akadémiai, 1966), 177–80; András Borosy,
“Történetírók a tatárjárásról,” Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 104 (1991): 18–20; István Fodor, “A tatár
pusztítás mértéke,” in “Carmen Miserabile.” A tatárjárás magyarországi emlékei. Tanulmányok Pálóczi
Horváth András 70. születésnapja tiszteletére, ed. Szabolcs Rosta and György V. Székely (Kecskemét:
Kecskeméti Katona József Múzeum, 2014), 313–15; Szűcs, Az utolsó Árpádok, 5; Gyula Kristó,
“A tatárjárás korának demográfiai viszonyai,” in Nagy, Tatárjárás, 503–5; József Laszlovszky, “Az
ország pusztulása,” in A Tatárjárás (1241–42), ed. Ágnes Ritoók and Éva Garam (Budapest: Hun-
garian National Museum, 2007), 40–41; Pál Engel, Szent István birodalma (Budapest: MTA Tör-
ténettudományi Intézete, 2001), 88–91; András Kubinyi and József Laszlovszky, “Demographic
Issues in Late Medieval Hungary: Population, Ethnic Groups, Economic Activity,” in The Economy
of Medieval Hungary. East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, ed. József
Laszlovszky, Balázs Nagy, Péter Szabó, and András Vadas (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 48–63.
38. Recent summaries of the debate include: Rogers, “An Examination”; B. Szabó, A tatár-
járás, 157–63; Stephen L. Plow, “Deep ditches and well-built walls: a reappraisal of the Mon-
gol withdrawal from Europe in 1242” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Calgary, 2012), 9–45; József
Laszlovszky, Stephen Plow, Beatrix F. Romhányi, László Ferenczi, and Zsolt Pinke, “Contex-
tualizing the Mongol Invasion of Hungary in 1241–42: Short- and Long-Term Perspectives,”
Hungarian Historical Review 7, no. 3 (2018): 436–38.
39. Plow, “Deep ditches,” 120–21. About the importance of fortifications in the Hungarian
Kingdom during the Mongol invasion, see János B. Szabó, “Az 1241. évi “tatárjárás” és Várad
pusztulása az újabb kutatási eredmények tükrében,” in Nagyvárad és Bihar az Árpád-kor végén,
ed. László Pósán (Nagyvárad: Varadinum Kulturális Alapítvány, 2016), 51–54; Laszlovszky, et al.,
“Contextualizing the Mongol Invasion,” 430–31.
40. May, “The Mongol Art of War and the Tsunami Strategy,” 34–35.

Hungary without setting up any form of permanent rule or even formal tribute. In
1972, Denis Sinor hypothesized that the Mongol departure instead was motivated
by the inability of the Great Hungarian Plain to sustain their horses. His math
for pasture requirements and his overall conclusions have since been challenged,
but it remains the case that Mongol steppe cavalry forces could not easily form
concentrated garrisons to control territory, and doing so ran counter to their
default set of assumptions about how conquest worked.41 It is true that depending
on where in the empire one was in the 1240s, the Mongols were in the midst of
transitioning to a sedentary state/imperial model of using conquered sedentary
forces as garrisons for their conquests of agricultural states (in places like north
China or Persia), and indeed we see the Mongols folding sedentary forces into
their army during the early stages of the invasion of Hungary.42
It is in evaluating their intentions that the archaeological evidence may be of
use: were Mongol forces using steppe nomadic decapitation practices in the wake of
Muhi with intentions to rule, or were they simply engaged in more indiscriminate
destruction and plunder? When a literary source claims that “all those whom they did
not keep alive were beheaded by the sword with horrendous cruelty,” what is implied
here about those they did keep alive?43 How many and why? Is this something we
can see in the material record? And what intentions may be postulated regarding
conquest and consolidation strategies based on the archaeological data?
Archaeology can also bear on those questions by supplementing the historical
record of the Hungarian Kingdom’s recovery. Had the Mongols destroyed such
a wide swathe of the Hungarian population that recovery would have been long
in coming, or had their decapitation been relatively narrow, and the recovery
after their departure thus relatively quick? The historical records on the extensive
military activities of the Hungarian Kingdom soon after the abrupt end of the
Mongol invasion have suggested to historians that the recovery of the Hungarian
state was rather quick.44 In addition to the limited impact of the campaigns in
most parts of Transdanubia, the return of tens of thousands of Cumans in 1246
might have played an important role in this process.45
41. In addition to note 14, for two recent contributions to this perspective, see Büntgen and
Di Cosmo, “Climatic and Environmental”; Pinke, et al., “Climate of Doubt.” We are grateful to
Timothy May for many discussions on this issue.
42. Büntgen and Di Cosmo, “Climatic and Environmental,” 6; Master Roger, “Epistle,” 167.
In general, the Mongol shift to imagining world conquest occurred immediately after the invasion
of Hungary. Timothy May, The Mongol Conquests in World History (London: Reaktion, 2012), 48.
43. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 205, also cf. pp. 213 and 217.
44. Iván Bertényi, “Magyarország nemzetközi helyzete a tatárjárás után,” in Unger Mátyás
Emlékkönyv, eds. Péter E. Kovács, János Kalmár, and László V. Molnár (Budapest: MTA Tör-
ténettudományi Intézet, 1991), 15–22; László Szende, “Magyarország külpolitikája 1242–1246
között,” in Első Század, ed. Péter Váradi (Budapest: ELTE BTK, 2000), 299–349; B. Szabó, A
tatárjárás, 170–76; Laszlovszky, et al., “Contextualizing the Mongol Invasion,” 438–41.
45. For a discussion of the aftermath of the Mongol invasion in Transdanubia, see Laszlovsz-
ky, et al., “Contextualizing the Mongol Invasion,” 428–30. The recruited Cumans were settled in

During the following decades, military conflicts regularly occurred between

Hungarian and Mongol forces along and beyond the eastern border of the
Hungarian Kingdom, but the Mongols penetrated the country on a larger scale
again only in 1285. This operation followed the departure of many of the Cumans
from the realm again, provoked by severe conflicts with the Hungarians and
accompanied by plundering of settlements, in the autumn of 1282.46 The Mongol
troops, commanded by Telebuga and Noga, might have ravaged through the
northern Carpathians and Transylvania, and reached Pest in the winter of 1285.
Contemporary textual resources are meager and frequently controversial, but
historians agree that this operation was much smaller in scale and caused much
less devastation in the realm than the campaign in 1241–42, and the Hungarians
successfully managed to fend off the invaders after about three months.47 The
Mongol army never again moved into Hungary on a significant scale, although it
remained a threatening presence on the nearby steppe for many more decades.
The Narrative Sources for the 1241–42 Mongol Campaign

Before turning to the archaeological evidence, we must assess the narrative
accounts of the invasion in 1241–42. These sources include contemporaneous and
somewhat later travel reports, letters, chronicles, and annals, and similar to the
Asian records, vividly describe the Mongols’ cruel and deadly atrocities during
their attacks.48 Here, we particularly focus on accounts that explicitly discuss
tactics and actions during, and consequences after, the Mongol military operations
against settlements in the Hungarian Kingdom.49
multiple regions of the realm, including the Danube-Tisza, the Körös-Maros, the Körös-Tisza, and
the Danube-Tisza-Maros interfluves. These regions might have suffered the most significant popu-
lation loss during the Mongol campaigns in 1241–42. See Gábor Hatházi, A kunok régészeti emlékei
a Kelet-Dunántúlon (Budapest: Hungarian National Museum, 2004); András Pálóczi Horváth,
“Nomád népek a keleti steppén és a középkori Magyarországon,” in Zúduló sasok: Új honfoglalók –
besenyők, kunok, jászok – a középkori Alföldön és a Mezőföldön, ed. Péter Havassy (Gyula: Erkel Ferenc
Museum, 1996), 25–26; Pálóczi Horváth, Keleti népek a középkori Magyarországon, 157–68.
46. Tibor Szőcs, “Egy második tatárjárás? A tatár–magyar kapcsolatok a XIII. század má-
sodik felében,” Belvedere 22, nos. 3–4 (2010): 19–20.
47. For an extensive summary of this campaign based on a thorough overview of the avail-
able written records, see Szőcs, “Egy második tatárjárás?,” 16–49. See also James Chambers, The
Devil’s Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe (London: Phoenix, 2001), 164; György Székely,
“Egy elfeledett rettegés: a második tatárjárás a magyar történeti hagyományokban és az egy-
etemes összefüggésekben,” Századok 122, nos. 1–2 (1988), 52–88; Jackson, The Mongols and the
West, 173, 175; B. Szabó, A tatárjárás, 181–83.
48. For summaries, see Dawson, Mission to Asia; Saunders, The History; Katona, A tatárjárás
emlékezete; Nagy, Tatárjárás; Jackson, The Mongols and the West; B. Szabó, A tatárjárás; Morris
Rossabi, The Mongols and Global History (New York: Norton and Co., 2010).
49. A letter by an unknown Hungarian bishop to his former schoolfellow Guillaume
d’Auvergne, the bishop of Paris, predates the invasion of Hungary, but is also notable. The letter
was written in the summer or fall of 1240, and, based on the confessions of two Mongol captives,

The most important literary source for the Mongol attack on the realm,
particularly for Transylvania and the Great Hungarian Plain, was provided by
Rogerius of Apulia, or Master Roger, an Italian-born Dominican monk, who
arrived in Hungary in the 1230s and became the archdeacon of Várad (today
Oradea in Romania) and the archbishop of Spalato (today Split in Croatia)
from 1249. Master Roger survived several Mongol attacks and captivity, and he
summarized his experiences in a manuscript entitled Carmen Miserabile super
Destructione Regni Hungariae per Tartaros (Lament Upon the Destruction of
Hungary by the Tatars).50 The manuscript was written presumably in 1243 to the
bishop of Preneste who was the Pope’s legate in Hungary between 1232 and 1234.
In addition to discussing the political context, Master Roger recounts the major
events of the Mongol campaign in the Hungarian Kingdom and the military
tactics applied against raided villages and fortified sites. These sections also feature
graphic descriptions of his own personal adventures. At the end of the manuscript,
Master Roger considers the reasons why the Mongol troops left the country.
Thomas, archdeacon of Spalato, also gave a detailed account of the Mongol
campaign against the Hungarian Kingdom and the neighboring regions in the
northern Balkans. He discusses the invasion in four chapters of his Historia
Salonitanorum atque Spalatinorum pontificum (History of the Bishops of Salona
and Split), and also reviews the Mongol military tactics.51 The author knew Master
Roger and his Carmen Miserabile and had visited King Béla IV.52
the characteristics, military tactics, and weaponry of the Mongol troops in the Ukrainian steppe
are discussed. Georgius Fejér, ed., Codex diplomaticus Hungariae ecclesiasticus ac civilis, vols. I–XI
(Budae, 1829–44), VI/1. 232–34; Hansgerd Göckenjan and James R. Sweeney, trans. and eds.,
Der Mongolensturm. Berichte von Augenzeugen und Zeitgenossen. 1235–1250 (Graz, Wien, and
Köln: Styria, 1985), 277–79; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 163.
50. Imre Szentpétery, ed., Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum tempore ducum regumque stirpis
Arpadianae gestarum, vols. 1–2 (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1937–38), 2:543–88;
Master Roger, “Epistle”; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 129–57.
51. Nada Klaić, Historia Salonitana maior (Belgrade: Nauch Delo, 1967); Archdeacon Thomas
of Split, Historia Salonitanorum pontificum atque Spalatensium [Archdeacon Thomas of Split, History of
the Bishops of Salona and Split], trans. and ed. Damir Karbić and Mirjana Matijević-Sokol (Budapest
and New York: Central European University Press, 2006). See also James R. Sweeney, “A Neglected
Chronicle from Dalmatia: the Historia of Thomas of Spalato,” Manuscripta 24, no. 1 (1980): 3–19;
James R. Sweeney, “Thomas of Spalato and the Mongols: a Thirteenth Century Dalmatian View
of Mongol Customs,” Florilegium 4 (1982): 156–83; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 52–65.
52. Another famous account with references to the invasion, but lacking information re-
garding military operations on settlements, was written in 1247 by John of Plano Carpini, the
Pope’s Italian legate to the Great Khan. This work, the Historia Mongalorum (History of the
Mongols), provides insights into various aspects of the Mongol Empire, including a review of
Mongol military tactics and weaponry. Anastasius van den Wyngaert, Sinica Franciscana, vol.1
(1929): 27–130; Dawson, Mission to Asia. See also Denis Sinor, “John of Plano Carpini’s Return
from the Mongols. New Light from a Luxemburg Manuscript,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Soci-
ety 89, nos. 3–4 (1957): 193–206; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 75–114.

Key records also include multiple letters to the Pope and the German king
requesting urgent military aid, several of which briefly described the Mongol terror
and the grievous impacts on the country. King Béla IV himself wrote accounts in
a letter to Pope Gregory IX (18 May 1241) as well as a letter to King Conrad IV
of Germany (1241).53 Uros, the Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey at Pannonhalma,
in his letters to the Pope (3 February 1242) chronicled the Mongol invasion in
Transdanubia as well as, in particular, the dreadful effects on Christian people and
institutions throughout the realm.54 In the name of all Hungarians who sustained the
Mongol assaults, Hungarian clerics informed the Pope about the Mongols’ crossing
the Danube and their widespread aggression, and provided a list of resisting cities and
fortifications (2 February 1242).55 All urged the Pope’s immediate intervention.
Key narrative letters also emerged from foreign clerics serving in the region
during the invasion. Although some of their elements are evidently imaginary,
both the letter by Yvo de Narbonne, a French sectary who might have witnessed
a Mongol attack in eastern Austria, to the archbishop of Bordeaux in 1241, and
the letter of Ponce d’Aubon, a French Templar magister, to King Louis IX of
France in the same year, are significant accounts of the peculiarities of the Mongol
invasion of Hungary and the broader region.56
In addition, numerous contemporaneous European chronicles and annals,
particularly in Russia, Germany, Austria, and Poland, noted the campaign against
Hungary and its aftermath. Most of these accounts are at least tertiary productions
and contain rather stereotypical and recurrent descriptions of the cruelty of
the invaders.57 However, the annals of two abbeys in Austria share important
53. Fejér, Codex, IV.1. 214–15; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 164–65; Imre Szentpétery, ed., Az Árpád-házi
királyok okleveleinek kritikai jegyzéke, vol. 1, issue 2 (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia,
1927), 707; Göckenjan and Sweeney, Der Mongolensturm, 286–87; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 165–66.
54. György Györffy, “Újabb adatok a tatárjárás történetéhez,” Történelmi Szemle 22 (1991):
88; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 178–79.
55. Fedor Schneider, “Ein Schreiben der Ungarn an die Kurie aus der Letzten zeit des Ta-
tareneinfalles,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 36 (1915): 668–70;
Györffy, “Újabb adatok,” 88; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 178–79.
56. See Peter Jackson, “The Crusade against the Mongols (1241),” Journal of Ecclesiastical
History 42 (1991): 8–9. Narbonne’s letter is preserved in Matthew Paris, “Chronica Maiora,” in
Rerum Britannicorum Medii Aevi Scriptores, Rolls Series 57, 7 vols., ed. Henry R. Luard (London,
1872–83), 4: 270–77. A somewhat unreliable English translation is J. A. Giles, trans., Matthew
Paris’s English History, vol. 1 (London: George Bell and Sons, 1889), 467–73. The chronicler
and cartographer Matthaeus Paris, an English Benedictine monk who compiled the Chronica
Maiora between 1240 and 1253, wrote about the characteristics of the marauding Mongols, and
also described their expeditions in eastern and central Europe, with a particularly close attention
to the campaign against the Hungarian Kingdom. See Björn Weiler, “Matthew Paris on the
Writing of History,” Journal of Medieval History 35, no. 3 (2009): 254–78. Aubon’s letter is in
Albin F. Gombos, ed., Catalogus fontium historiae Hungaricae aevo ducum et regum ex stirpe Arpad
descendentium ab anno Christi DCCC usque ad annum MCCCI, vol. 4 (Budapest: Szent István
Akadémia, 1937–38), 774–75; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 172.
57. See note 48.

information with regard to, among others, the consequences of the Mongol invasion
of the Hungarian Kingdom.58 Likely on the basis of an eyewitness account, the
annals of the Dominican Friesach abbey regarding 1241 focus on the destruction
of, and apparently exaggerated death toll in, several towns in Transylvania.59
More importantly, the Cistercian abbey of Heiligenkreuz might regularly have
interacted with monasteries in the Hungarian Kingdom, and, therefore, its annals
can largely be considered as reliable sources. In addition to addressing political
issues, this 1241 account also provides information about the dramatic aftermath
of the Mongol invasion in Hungary.60
Finally, land charters issued by King Béla IV shed light on many intriguing
personal aspects and events at specific places related to the aggression. Over the
years after the retreat of the Mongols, the king rewarded many people who helped
him in his flight to Dalmatia or distinguished themselves in the active resistance
against the invaders. These records provide some additional details about both the
Mongol and Hungarian military tactics and actions.61
Problems and Possibilities in the Archaeological Study of the Mongol Invasion

in 1241–42
The historical accounts summarized above are unanimous in describing tremendous
destruction across the Hungarian Kingdom due to the Mongol expeditions of 1241–
42. Until recent times, however, the archaeological record has not supported such a
scale of devastation in the realm. Although numerous hoards, commonly composed of
coins and jewelry, as well as occasionally iron tools, might have been buried due to this
conquest,62 excavations at contemporaneous sites have rarely recovered features that
could be unambiguously associated with the Mongol invasion.63
As with so many other battlefields, mass graves at Hungarian battle sites have
yet to be found in relation to this campaign.64 Currently, only two bodies placed
58. For a recent study of the Austrian annals, see Gábor Bradács, “A tatárjárás osztrák elbe-
szélő forrásainak kritikája,” Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 127, no. 1 (2014): 3–22.
59. Ludwig Weiland, ed., “Annales Frisacenses,” Monumenta Germaniae Historica SS 24
(1879): 65–67; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 40–41.
60. Wilhelm Wattenbach, ed., “Continuatio Sancrucensis II,” Monumenta Germaniae His-
torica SS 9 (1851); Nagy, Tatárjárás, 43–45.
61. These records are available in Latin and Hungarian. See Nagy, Tatárjárás, 179–96, 198–
201, esp. 185, 190–92, 194–95.
62. László Simon, “Középkori vaseszközök Nagykőrösön,” Studia Comitatensia 23 (1994):
313–38; Csaba Tóth, “A tatárjárás korának pénzekkel keltezett kincsleletei,” in Ritoók and Ga-
ram, A Tatárjárás (1241–42), 79–90; György V. Székely, “Tatárjárás és numizmatika. Egy törté-
nelmi katasztrófa pénzforgalmi aspektusai,” in Rosta and V. Székely, “Carmen Miserabile,” 331–
44; Mária Vargha, Hoards, Grave Goods, Jewellery: Objects in Hoards and in Burial Contexts During
the Mongol Invasion of Central-Eastern Europe (Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2015), esp. 29–30.
63. For the discussion of the problem, see József Laszlovszky, “Tatárjárás és régészet,” in
Nagy, Tatárjárás, 453–68; Laszlovszky, et al., “Contextualizing the Mongol Invasion,” 422–27.
64. See Laszlovszky, “Tatárjárás és régészet,” 453–56; József Laszlovszky, Stephen Plow,

in a single pit in the Árpádian Age (AD 1000–1301) village of Muhi have been
interpreted as warriors who participated in the battle there. Along with steppe-
type horse bits, weapons, and personal objects, several coins of King Béla IV,
dating from 1235 to 1241, also were recovered from this site.65
Likewise, fortifications dating to the thirteenth century with traces of a siege
have rarely been reported. For a long time, the sole example was Csengele-Fecskés
(see Figure 1), where the fortified church was surrounded with a ditch system
in which burned palisade remains were exposed.66 More recent archaeological
research, however, using remote sensing techniques and excavations, altered this
picture. Several additional fortified churches showing evidence of combat have
been noted in preliminary reports from the Danube-Tisza Interfluve (e.g., Tázlár-
Templomhegy and Szank-Kápolnahely; see Figure 1).67
Similarly, until quite recently, very few settlement sites produced relevant
information about the Mongol operations against the Hungarian Kingdom, and
even these finds were equivocal with respect to the process and scale of destruction.
In Esztergom (see Figure 1), a human skeleton was unearthed, alongside highly
valuable metal objects dating to the Árpádian Age, under the charred beams of
a building.68 This is the lone archaeological evidence for the fierce siege of the
fortified city of Esztergom in Transdanubia by the Mongols in 1242.69 A similar
find comes from the village of Szabolcs-Kisfalud in northern Hungary, where
the excavations recovered torched houses with in situ metal tools and weapons as
well as the remains of an individual (see Figure 1).70 At both sites, the dead were
and Tamás Pusztai, “Reconstructing the Battle of Muhi and the Mongol Invasion of Hungary
in 1241: New Archaeological and Historical Approaches,” Hungarian Archaeology, Winter 2016,
http://files.archaeolingua.hu/2016T/Laszlovszky_E16.pdf accessed 21 February 2019.
65. Tamás Pusztai, “Könnyűlovas harcos sírja a muhi csatából,” Studia Archaeologica 12
(2011): 629–40; Tamás Pusztai, “Buzogánnyal, tarsollyal és késtok merevítővel eltemetett halott
a muhi csatából,” in Rosta and V. Székely, “Carmen Miserabile,” 141–50.
66. Ferenc Horváth, A csengelei kunok ura és népe (Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2001), 80–85.
67. Zsolt Gallina and Gyöngyi Gulyás, “Homokba temetett falvak és templomok: A ta-
tárjárás korának emlékei a Kiskunságban,” Határtalan Régészet 3, no. 1 (2018): 44–49; Zoltán
Forczek, Gábor Wilhelm, and Szabolcs Rosta, “Adatok a térségünk honfoglalás és a kunok be-
fogadása közötti időszakának történelmi múltjából (890-es évek–1246),” in Szank története I, ed.
Zoltán Forczek (Szank: Szank Község Önkormányzata, 2013), 33–53; Szabolcs Rosta and István
Pánya, “A szanki ellenállók,” Határtalan Régészet 3, no. 1 (2018): 50–53; Szabolcs Rosta, “Egy új
lehetőség kapujában—tatárjáráskori védművek a Kiskunságban,” in Genius loci: Laszlovszky 60,
ed. Dóra Mérai, Ágnes Drosztmér, Kyra Lyublyanovics, Judith Rasson, Zsuzsanna Papp Reed,
András Vadas, and Csilla Zatykó (Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2018), 186–92.
68. Nándor Fettich, “Ötvösmester hagyatéka Esztergomban a tatárjárás korából,” Komárom
Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 1 (1968): 157–96.
69. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 217. Also, no archaeological evidence for the siege of Pest in March
1241, described as an event in which “more than one hundred thousand persons were devoured by cruel
death,” is available. For the siege, see Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops, 273–77, quote p. 277.
70. István Fodor, “Vorbericht über die Ausgrabungen am Szabolcs-Vontatópart und in
Szabolcs-Kisfalud,” Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarium Hungaricae 28 (1976): 371–82.

found in storage pits. In addition, several other excavations yielded one or a few
Árpádian Age buildings that presumably were destroyed in the course of violent
conflicts. These burned features commonly included valuable metal objects, but
human remains were not recovered.71
Although these scattered archaeological data confirmed that violent conflicts
occurred in the Hungarian Kingdom during the Árpádian Age, interpreting
them remained problematic. First, dating of destruction episodes based on
material culture, unless coins provide terminus post quem, frequently remains
vague, specifying only between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Second,
when human remains are not present, there are many possible reasons for burning
episodes, not all including conflict. And finally, the literary sources make clear that
several periods of the Árpádian Age were characterized by local- and regional-
scale conflicts within the Hungarian Kingdom.
We argue that confirming Mongol raids at archaeological sites requires some
form of correlation with the written sources on the invasion in 1241–42 and can
further be interpreted in the light of the theory of conquest presented earlier in
this paper. Based on the study of literary accounts, archaeological implications
must be established, and then their identification in the archaeological record at
a given excavated site can be conducted (Table 3).72 In this paper, we use this
methodology specifically on settlement sites.
In regard to the Mongols’ tactics and actions against settlements, historical
sources emphasize the key role of surprise, commonly leading to large-scale
torching of buildings.73 We can therefore expect corresponding archaeological
indicators of burned structures and human remains in the buildings, as well as the
presence of valuable artifacts in hastily abandoned houses.
The sources also claim the extensive slaughter of inhabitants of all ages and
both sexes over the course of attacks, with some additional claims of deliberate
mutilation.74 Archaeological evidence for these events might include a large
number of complete bodies and disarticulated body parts of both males and females,
representing a broad age range, at the settlements. Lesions are expected on human
71. István Dinnyés, “XIII. századi ház a tápiógyörgyei Ilike parton,” Studia Comitatensia 23
(1994): 101–17; Zsuzsa Miklós, “XIII. századi nemesi udvarház Tura-Szentgyörgyparton,” Stu-
dia Comitatensia 21 (1994): 433–56; László Szabó, “Megjegyzések a böszörmények kérdéséhez
a Hajdúböszörmény határában talált Árpád-kori falu régészeti leletei alapján,” Debreceni Déri
Múzeum Évkönyve 2002–2003 (2003): 78–108.
72. For a study using this methodological approach with a focus on the site of Orosháza-
Bónum, see Attila Gyucha and Zoltán Rózsa, “‘…egyesek darabokra vágva, egyesek egészben’: A
tatárjárás nyomainak azonosítási kísérlete egy dél-alföldi településen,” in Rosta and V. Székely,
“Carmen Miserabile,” 57–68.
73. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 197, 199, 201, 225; Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops, 277,
289; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 172, 177; Giles, Matthew Paris’s English History, 342.
74. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 199, 201, 205, 211, 213, 217 (mutilation, p. 207); Thomas of
Split, History of the Bishops, 273, 277, 297; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 40, 44, 164, 165, 172, 177, 179, 190,
194; Giles, Matthew Paris’s English History, 341.

Table 3. Tactics and actions of the raiders and raided during the Mongol assaults
on settlements in 1241–42 based on contemporaneous literary accounts, and their
expected archaeological signatures. Note that the currently available archaeologi-
cal record indicates that fortification occurred outside of settlement areas.
and animal bones. The skeletons of hidden people who died in cavities, such as semi-
subterranean houses or pits, would also support the occurrence of indiscriminate
slaughtering.75 Weapons or weapon fragments associated with combats and violent
traumatic injuries on the skeletal remains may also be indicators.
Similar to other regions in Eurasia, mass execution (as distinct from killings
in the course of battle or raid) was commonly employed by the Mongols after
their attacks in the Hungarian Kingdom.76 Where killings of the captured took
place, spatial clusters of bodies, possibly also tied up, occur at the archaeological
sites. Presence or absence of lesions on bones depends on the implementation of
execution; sources about the campaign in Hungary mention decapitation, driving
spears and swords into the heart, and the non-specified use of axes.
Multiple sources also record that Mongol bands would raid the same villages
repeatedly.77 In thirteenth-century Christian Hungary, the dead normally were
interred in the sacred ground of the community’s cemetery, located surrounding
75. For residents hiding in pits, see Master Roger, “Epistle,” 203.
76. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 171, 201, 205, 213, 219; Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops,
271–72, 295; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 172; Giles, Matthew Paris’s English History, 342.
77. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 199, 201, 207; Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops, 301.

a church, nearby or a few kilometers away from the settlements. The presence of
irregularly buried human remains within a settlement area suggests a continued
fear of attack, forcing the returning survivors to bury their dead at a later time
and at a quick pace. As Thomas of Split noted: “There was no time for funeral
rites, no time to weep for their loved ones, no time to bury them.”78 The literary
sources also mention that human bodies were left unburied for a longer period of
time after the Mongol attacks; exposure to scavengers could archaeologically have
resulted in the disarticulation of body parts as well as animal gnaw marks on the
bones.79 The resurgence of plagues in this period also could have prevented people
from transporting the dead to formal cemeteries.
Further common characteristics of the Mongol raids included looting, raping,
and the capture and enslavement of people during and after attacks.80 Concerning
these aspects, direct archaeological correlates are not expected.
In regard to the tactics and actions of the raided Hungarians, if people had
warning of an impending Mongol attack, the most commonly reported response
of rural inhabitants was to evacuate and relocate to hidden places in the landscape
or to gather at fortified sites.81 The archaeological implications of evacuation
might include hoards hidden by the residents in or near the settlements, as well
as houses, either burned or unburned, with a dearth or a complete absence of
in situ objects. At these sites, human remains are not found or, when particular
individuals failed to leave, may occur in small numbers and in hidden contexts.
As a response to the armed threat, in addition to strengthening existing
fortifications, rapid fortifications of specific, defensible places, where people
congregated from multiple villages, occurred in the countryside. In the mountains,
these structures were primarily built of wood and stone, while those on the Great
Hungarian Plain were more likely to have been based on ditches and ramparts. In
the latter region, ditch systems are expected to be the most visible archaeological
signatures of fortification activities, whereas evidence for attacks may include
traces of a burning episode, human remains in the enclosure area, weapons in and
around the fortifications, as well as archaeological signatures of execution.
A word is necessary about possible near-contemporary episodes of destruction
other than the Mongol conquest in 1241–42. The Cumans’ retreats in 1241 and
1282 were also accompanied by a wave of destruction, as was the Mongols’ second,
smaller invasion in 1285. Most analysis of the literary evidence suggests that
those events were more confined to specific regions and had much less devastating
impact than the first Mongol campaign.82 These arguments, however, must be
tested against the archaeological record and with careful chronological controls.
78. Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops, 277.

79. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 207, 225; Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops, 277, 303.
80. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 167, 179, 191, 201, 205, 209, 211, 213, 221; Thomas of Split,
History of the Bishops, 271, 279, 295, 299; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 44, 165, 172, 177, 190.
81. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 199, 201, 203, 205, 207, 211, 225; Thomas of Split, History of
the Bishops, 275, 295, 297; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 177, 185, 190.
82. See note 47.

Methodologically, the formulation of valid archaeological and historical

interpretations at specific archaeological sites and at the regional scale regarding
the process and aftermaths of military conquests is a complex analytical procedure
that requires the use of data from a number of extensive excavations that would
provide a sufficient quantity and a wide range of evidence. The proliferation of
motorway and other infrastructural projects over the past decades has generated
unprecedented, large-scale archaeological works in Hungary, frequently recovering
significant proportions of many sites.83 These excavations have produced the first
substantial archaeological datasets to address the characteristics and impact of the
Mongol invasion in 1241–42 on the Hungarian Kingdom.
A Case Study: The Árpádian Age Village of Orosháza-Bónum

Orosháza-Bónum is located to the west of the current town of Orosháza, in
the southeastern part of the Great Hungarian Plain (Figure 1). Although the site
has been known for decades, the Árpádian Age name of the village has not been
confirmed as of yet. Since the 1950s, both settlement features and burials dating to
the Árpádian Age have been recovered during small-scale rescue excavations related
to sand mining.84 Owing to the construction of a ring road at Orosháza, preventive
excavations were conducted at the site (Figure 2). A NE-SW strip, on the main
track of the planned road, was excavated in 2004 and 2005 (Area ‘A’). Additionally,
in 2006, archaeological works on the track of a NW-SE road, perpendicular to the
ring road, were carried out (Area ‘B’). The excavations in Area ‘A’ recovered a ca. 700-
meter-long section of the central part of the site (ca. 1.7 ha), while works in Area ‘B’
resulted in data concerning the northern portion of the settlement (ca. 0.5 ha).
The excavations revealed a complex Árpádian Age village, with 105 semi-
subterranean houses and their associated, typically pit, features, frequently
organized in spatial clusters of extended family units and surrounded by oblong
ditches. Settlement features commonly cut into one another, indicating multiple
construction phases.85 The excavations and a recent metal detector survey recovered
coins dating from the middle of the twelfth to the first few decades of the thirteenth
centuries.86 The cemetery of the occupants was located immediately northwest.
83. Katalin Wollák and Pál Raczky, “Large-scale preventive excavations in Hungary,” in
Large-scale excavations in Europe: Fieldwork strategies and scientiﬁc outcome, ed. Jork Boﬁnger and
Dirk Krausse (Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2012), 115–36.
84. For a summary of these excavations, see Zoltán Rózsa, “… hol helyét régi sáncz, árkolás
jelöli még most is … Egy különleges Árpád-kori település emlékei I,” Mozaikok Orosháza és
vidéke múltjából 14 (2016): 45–59.
85. For a detailed account of recent archaeological investigations of the village, see Gyucha
and Rózsa, “…egyesek darabokra vágva,” 58–60.
86. Zoltán Rózsa and Csaba Tóth, “This king likes Muslims…Traces of an exceptional settle-
ment from the Árpádian Age 3,” in Hadak Útján: 26th Conference of Young Scholars on the Migra-
tion Period, ed. Zsófia Rácz, István Koncz, and Bence Gulyás (Budapest: Eötvös Loránd Univer-
sity, Institute of Archaeological Sciences, 2018), 317.

Figure 2: The excavated Areas ‘A ’ and ‘B’ at Orosháza-Bónum with the outline of Árpádian
Age features [Drawn by Attila Gyucha and Zoltán Bodnár]
Based on the excavated faunal assemblage, burial practices, and historical data, it
was proposed that the village was occupied by a Muslim community.87
There is substantial archaeological evidence that Orosháza-Bónum was
violently destroyed. Traces of intensive, high-temperature burning that were not
87. Pig bones are unusually absent at the site, and it appears that most cattle, sheep, and
goats slaughtered at the site were killed while young, and this pattern has been connected to an
Islamic holiday, the Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice). Furthermore, the form and orienta-
tion of graves in the nearby cemetery also suggests a Muslim community at Orosháza-Bónum.
Finally, a sixteenth-century deed mentions Böszörményestelek located on the northern border
of Orosháza; the toponym refers to a territory with an abandoned settlement, and “Böszörmény”
is a Hungarian term designating Muslims in the Middle Ages. For details and references, see
Zoltán Rózsa and Beáta Tugya, “Kik voltak az első Orosháza lakói? Problémafelvetés egy kutatás
kezdetén,” Mozaikok Orosháza és vidéke múltjából 6 (2012): 17–31; Zoltán Rózsa, Beáta Tugya,
and Viktor Csányi, “Rejtélyes idegenek a Kárpát-medencében. Árpád-kori mohamedánok az
Alföldön,” Élet és Tudomány 2012, no. 38 (2012): 1193–95; Zoltán Rózsa, János Balázs, Vik-
tor Csányi, and Beáta Tugya, “Árpád Period Muslim settlement and cemetery in Orosháza,”
Hungarian Archaeology, Autumn 2014, http://www.hungarianarchaeology.hu/wp-content/
uploads/2014/11/eng_rozsa_14O.pdf, accessed 21 February 2019. Literary sources attest that
Muslim groups of various origins migrated to the Hungarian Kingdom from the late ninth to
the thirteenth centuries and settled down in colonies in the southern periphery of the country
between the Danube and Sava Rivers, in the vicinity of Pest, around Nitra, and in the Nyírség

Figure 3: Major features associated with the Mongol assault of the village at Orosháza-
Bónum [Drawn by Attila Gyucha and Zoltán Bodnár]
associated with regular household practices, including large amounts of burned

daub, charred timbers, and thick ash layers throughout the floors, were found in
twenty-two houses at the site (Figure 3). Stratigraphic observations indicate that
these torched houses represent without exception the final phase of the village.
Excavated hoards make clear that metal objects, including iron tools, were
valuable items during the Árpádian Age.88 At Orosháza-Bónum, metal artifacts,
such as stirrups, sickles, and spurs made of iron, as well as bronze ornaments,
were recovered from twenty-six houses (Figure 4). In five buildings, multiple,
large iron tools were unearthed. Furthermore, copper balance pans of scales, that
region of northern Hungary. Nora Berend, At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and “Pagans”
in Medieval Hungary, c. 1000–c.1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 64–68;
Gyula Kristó, Nem magyar népek a középkori Magyarországon (Budapest: Lucidus, 2003), 41–54;
Jenő Szűcs, “Két történelmi példa az etnikai csoportok életképességéről,” Holmi, November
2008, http://www.holmi.org/2008/11/szucs-jeno-ket-tortenelmi-pelda-az-etnikai-csoportok-
eletkepessegerol, accessed 21 February 2019; Károly Mesterházy, “Izmaeliták, böszörmények,
volgai bolgárok,” Hajdúsági Múzeum Évkönyve 1 (1973): 37–48.
88. Simon, “Középkori vaseszközök”; Tóth, “A tatárjárás korának.”

Figure 4: Agricultural iron tools recovered from burned structures associated with the
Mongol assaults at Orosháza-Bónum [Photographed by Anikó Tihanyi]
were particularly precious objects used in trading activities in the period, also were
found at the site.89
Human skeletal remains accounting for a minimum of eighteen and a maximum
of twenty-two individuals were recovered during the settlement excavations. These
findings came to light from semi-subterranean buildings as well as shallow ditches
and pits (see Figure 3). Many of these latter features already had partially been filled
when the placement of human remains took place. Bones of a minimum of nine
adults were clustered in the easternmost, ca. 40–50 m section of the settlement,
and the rest of the human skeletal materials were scattered across the site. Twelve
skeletons were complete or largely complete, including several lacking skulls. In
Area ‘B’, three individuals, two children and an adult female, lay partly on top of
one another in a ditch. The tip of a short sword or dagger was exposed in the upper
body of the younger child (Figure 5). Disarticulated skeletons of a minimum of
three young adults were found in a ditch at the eastern edge of Area ‘A’. Suggesting
additional skeletal remains decomposed and scattered even more widely, five isolated
skulls were recovered, while numerous other bones derived from a variety of other
body parts. One fragmented leg bone displays multiple cut-marks.
89. For a summary of this artifact type, see Szabolcs Rosta, “A tatárjárás régészetének újabb
távlatai, két kiskunsági lelőhely eredményei fényében,” Archaeológiai Értesítő 143 (2018): 179.

Figure 5: The bodies of a female and

two children recovered from a ditch.
‘A ’ indicates the location of the tip
of a short sword or dagger found in
the upper body of one of the children.
[Drawn by Dorottya Kékegyi]
In the six cases where sex is identifiable, males and females are present in
equal number. Considering age division, the juvenis (fifteen to twenty-one years)
and adultus (twenty-two to thirty-nine years) cohorts prevail, with seven and five
individuals, respectively. Infants (under fifteen years) are represented by four and
the maturus cohort (forty to fifty-nine years) by two remains. Senium (from sixty
years) individuals were not found at the Orosháza-Bónum settlement.
Concerning animal remains, two incomplete horse skeletons were recovered
from a ditch in Area ‘A’, in the same territory where the minimum of nine adult
individuals were found in the easternmost portion of the site. Additionally, several
complete dog skeletons and other, dismembered domesticate remains, presumably
also associated with the use of terror on the village, were exposed in pits and
ditches throughout the site.
On the basis of correlations between literary records and potential
archaeological signatures concerning tactics and actions (see Table 3), the data
from Orosháza-Bónum clearly infer a Mongol surprise attack on the village. The
large number of burned structures, a similar number of structures containing in
situ valuable metal objects, the presence of complete and partial animal skeletons,
a weapon fragment embedded in a human body, and crucially, nearly two dozen
human remains of different sexes and various ages throughout the settlement

verify the assault. Equally significant, all these features date to the final phase of
the village. The fact that the burial of human remains did not follow conventional
funerary customs—that is, the bodies were not placed in the adjacent cemetery,
as well as their random orientation and position—indicates that the survivors
interred the victims of the massacre into features of the abandoned settlement as
rapidly as possible. The many highly fragmented remains at Orosháza-Bónum
suggest that these inhumations partially or entirely occurred at a time when several
of the bodies had already been decomposed to various extents.
The coins from the site dating no later than the first decades of the thirteenth
century confirm that the Orosháza-Bónum settlement was devastated by the
Mongol forces during the 1241–42 operations. Because the Cumans’ settlement
area might have been confined to the Danube-Tisza Interfluve at the time of their
retreat in 1241, and there are no data indicating an advance through the Körös-
Maros Interfluve, it is highly unlikely that the Cumans devastated the settlement
at Orosháza-Bónum.90 In fact, the delayed and hasty burial of the bodies alone,
which signals insecurity that lasted for a longer period of time in the micro-region,
argues against a single violent act by a group that rapidly left the region.91
Beyond Orosháza-Bónum: Regional Evidence for the Mongol Invasion in

1241–42
We can use the same methodology to examine a number of additional villages
on and beyond the Great Hungarian Plain which have provided evidence of their
destruction during the Mongol raids in 1241–42 (see Figure 1). Moreover, many
of these sites further yielded solid archaeological data for the dramatic scale of
slaughter graphically described in the literary accounts.
The vast majority of these settlements have been recovered by preventive and rescue
excavations in the past fifteen years. Because the outcomes of these archaeological
works have been published in Hungarian scientific journals and edited volumes almost
exclusively in Hungarian, we here provide brief summaries of the results. Specifically,
we focus on data concerning the aftermath of the Mongol ravages.
Currently known Hungarian settlement sites with firm evidence for violence
due to the Mongol invasion in 1241–42 occur in four regions: 1) northern
Hungary, 2) the vicinity of the city of Pest, 3) the Danube-Tisza Interfluve, and 4)
the Körös-Maros Interfluve.
In northern Hungary, at the site of Hejőkeresztúr-Vizekköze, the excavations
of a twelfth- to thirteenth-century settlement on the track of a motorway in 1995
90. The ravaging Cumans retreated from the country southwards across the Danube-Tisza
Interfluve in Spring 1241, possibly crossing the Danube near the modern city of Erdut and
plundering the Srem region of northern Serbia. Hardi, “Cumans and Mongols,” 88–91. Over
the course of their advance, they did not cross the Tisza River; therefore, the Cumans cannot be
blamed for the devastation of Orosháza-Bónum located ca. 35 km east of the Tisza.
91. For a detailed discussion of relationships between the duration of threats and potential
identification of devastation and massacres at settlement sites, see note 111.

and 1996 recovered a burned house with human skull fragments and a femur in the
debris (see Figure 1).92 In the building, similarly to other parts of the settlement,
a wide range of metal artifacts, such as scale balance pans, iron tools, swords,
some armor, and personal adornments, were found. In addition to two complete,
unconventionally interred human burials and the remains of multiple horses in a
single feature, the scattered bones of a minimum of six individuals were exposed
throughout the settlement. The abandonment of the village might have been related
to the battle at Muhi in 1241, likely located a few kilometers to the east.
In 2013, in the Árpádian Age settlement of Onga-Ócsanálos, situated ca.
fifteen kilometers from the presumed location of the Muhi battle, an adultus
male was found during the preventive excavation of a levee track (see Figure 1).93
Between the lower vertebrae of the hastily buried individual, placed partially in a
settlement feature, an arrowhead was unearthed. The sole radiocarbon date from
Hungarian sites where settlement devastation and massacre evidently occurred
during the Árpádian Age is from this burial, confirming that the body was
interred in the first half of the 1200s. Because further traces of devastation were
not recovered at the site, the excavator argued that the village was evacuated
before the Mongols arrived.
In the vicinity of Pest, at Cegléd-Madarászhalom, an eleventh- to thirteenth-
century village was excavated during preventive archaeological work in advance
of a road in 2005 and 2006 (see Figure 1).94 In a torched, semi-subterranean
structure, the remains of a young woman and two children were discovered, along
with a variety of tools and a coin of King Béla IV dating 1235 to 1241. The bodies
lay in the kiln of the house, the door of which was barricaded with a wooden
bin; undoubtedly, the family attempted to hide from the attackers who set the
building on fire. The skeletal remains of an additional six individuals, thrown into
settlement features, also were found at this site. Because the majority of buildings
at Cegléd-Madarászhalom did not contain similarly numerous in situ objects as
the torched house, and hidden iron tools were recovered from several pits, it is
assumed that most of the villagers fled prior to the attack of the Mongols.95
Similar to Cegléd-Madarászhalom, at Dunaföldvár-Ló-hegy, located south
of Budapest, on the right bank of the Danube, two women and two children,
92. Mária Wolf, “Árpád-kori település Hejőkeresztúr határában,” in A népvándorláskor fi-

atal kutatói 8. találkozójának előadásai, ed. Ágota Perémi (Veszprém: Veszprém Megyei Múzeumi
Igazgatóság, 1999), 166–78; Mária Wolf, “Hejőkeresztúr-Vizekköze—Tatárjárás idején elpusztult
település (Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén megye),” in Ritoók and Garam, A Tatárjárás (1241–42), 44–47.
93. Gábor Szörényi and Melinda Miskolczi, “Egy tatárjárás kori áldozat Ócsanálosról,” in
Fiatal középkoros régészek 9. konferenciája. Tanulmánykötet (Budapest: Hungarian National Mu-
seum, forthcoming).
94. Gyöngyi Gulyás, “Egy elpusztult falu Cegléd határában (Pest m.),” in Ritoók and Ga-
ram, A Tatárjárás (1241–42), 52–53; Gyöngyi Gulyás, “Egy elpusztult tatárjáráskori ház Cegléd
határában,” in Rosta and V. Székely, “Carmen Miserabile,” 29–56.
95. Gulyás, “Egy elpusztult tatárjáráskori,” 42–43.

along with iron tools, were found in a cavity of a pit in 2009 (see Figure 1).96 The
preventive excavations at the site, prior to the construction of a highway, yielded
the remains of a total of thirty-three individuals, the vast majority of which were
incomplete. Except for one possibly formal burial, the remains were placed into
settlement pits. In these features, burned and ash layers frequently were found. As
at Orosháza-Bónum, the dead were almost exclusively from the age cohorts of
infants, juvenis, and young adultus; a single set of human remains represents the
maturus age cohort. Males and females occur nearly equally in the assemblage,
three and five individuals, respectively. Animal remains related to the destruction
episode include three intact dogs and a disarticulated horse skeleton, all revealed
in a well. In addition to a large quantity of iron tools, a mace-head of Near Eastern
origin also was unearthed at Dunaföldvár-Ló-hegy. This weapon is believed to
have been associated with the raiders.97 The excavators argue that following the
assault, which took place sometime after January 1242 when the Mongols crossed
the Danube, the survivors returned to clean up the debris and interred the human
remains, but the settlement was never inhabited again.98
A number of devastated Árpádian Age settlement sites with evidence for
extensive massacres have recently been excavated in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve.
At Szank-Haladás Tsz. II., human skeletal remains, disintegrated, fragmented, and
burned to varying degrees, were exposed in the fill of a semi-subterranean building
during a pipeline project in 2010 (see Figure 1).99 A minimum of thirty-four
individuals, predominantly females, were identified representing the subadultus
and adultus age cohorts in an equal proportion.100 Across the house floor and
mingled with the scattered human remains, a rich collection of metal artifacts,
including coins dating to the turn of the 1230s and 1240s, gold, silver, and bronze
jewelry, personal adornments, as well as iron objects, including weapons, were
found. According to the excavator, a non-local, wealthy group fleeing the Mongols
may have slipped into the building, which then was torched by the marauders. At
some later indeterminate time, the rubble of the house was thoroughly searched for
valuables, leading to the high degree of fragmentation of the human bones.101
Approximately 8.5 km from this site, at Kiskunmajsa-Jonathermál Kelet,
findings remarkably similar to those of Szank-Haladás Tsz. II. were recovered
96. Magdolna Szilágyi, “Perished Árpádian-age village at Dunaföldvár,” Acta Archaeologica

Academiae Scientiarium Hungaricae 63 (2012): 155–80; Magdolna Szilágyi and Gábor Serlegi,
“Nád közé bújtak….? Egy a tatárjárás során elpusztult település maradványai Dunaföldvár ha-
tárában,” in Rosta and V. Székely, “Carmen Miserabile,” 127–40.
97. Szilágyi, “Perished Árpádian-age village,” 174.
98. Szilágyi and Serlegi, “Nád közé bújtak,” 134.
99. Gábor Wilhelm, “‘Akiket nem akartak karddal elpusztítani, tűzben elégették’ Az 1241.
évi pusztítás Szank határában,” in Rosta and V. Székely, “Carmen Miserabile,” 81–109.
100. László Paja, “Tatárjárás kori leletek vizsgálati lehetőségei a Szank határából előkerült
embertani szérián,” in Rosta and V. Székely, “Carmen Miserabile,” 111–26.
101. Wilhelm, “Akiket nem akartak,” 92–93.

(see Figure 1).102 Over the course of a rescue excavation in 2016, human remains,
frequently burned and highly fragmented, were revealed in two torched, semi-
subterranean houses located at a distance of over 100 m from one another. In some
instances, complete skeletons in unconventional body positions also were found in
these features. The minimum of thirty-four individuals include one infant, fourteen
juvenis, and sixteen subadultus and adultus women, as well as one subadultus and
two adultus men. Several of the remains exhibit perimortem violent injuries, and
animal gnaw marks were detected on a long bone. Valuable metal artifacts, such as
two assemblages of coins, with numerous foreign items dating to the 1220/1230s, as
well as silver rings, also were unearthed.103 The excavator presumes that following
the Mongol attack, the human remains were collected from across the site and
placed in these buildings; then the constructions were set on fire. Similar to Szank-
Haladás Tsz. II., the rubble might have been searched at a later date, resulting in the
disturbance and further fragmentation of human bones.104
Recent, systematic investigations of an Árpádian Age monastery and the
surrounding extensive settlement at Bugac-Pétermonostora have revealed the
complete and dismembered skeletal remains of ten individuals (see Figure 1).105
The remains were found in pits and other shallow settlement features, and some
of them may have been unburied and lay on the one-time surface. Excavations in
the settlement area yielded five infants and one young adultus woman, whereas
an infant, two juvenis, and an adultus individual were found at the monastery.
Furthermore, complete and partial animal burials, including a dog, a cat, a horse,
and multiple decapitated young cows, as well as two hoards of iron agricultural
tools and a hidden scale, were interpreted as evidence for a Mongol attack.106 The
complete and nearly complete human and animal remains at the settlement were
found within an area of ca. 400 m². The excavated buildings incorporated charred
debris, indicating that they were torched. After this devastating episode, both the
monastery and the village were abandoned for a long period of time.
In addition to Orosháza-Bónum, preventive excavations at another site in
the Körös-Maros Interfluve, Csanádpalota-Dávid-halom, in 2013, also provided
evidence for a Mongol assault (see Figure 1).107 Two complete adultus human
skeletons were revealed in settlement features. Both individuals might have been
tied up before they were killed and thrown into pits. Six coins of King Béla IV,
102. Rosta, “A tatárjárás régészetének,” 153–66.

103. György V. Székely and Balázs Nagy, “Érem és kincslelet Kiskunmajsa-Jonathermál
lelőhelyen,” Archaeologiai Értesítő 143 (2018): 197–201.
104. Rosta, “A tatárjárás régészetének,” 165–66.
105. Szabolcs Rosta, “Pétermonostora pusztulása,” in Rosta and V. Székely, “Carmen Mis-
erabile,” 193–230; Rosta, “A tatárjárás régészetének,” 166–81.
106. Rosta, “A tatárjárás régészetének,” 181.
107. Gyöngyi Gulyás and Zsolt Gallina, “Magányos kun lósír Csanádpalotáról,” in Rosta
and V. Székely, “Carmen Miserabile,” 151–68; Zsolt Gallina and Gyöngy Gulyás, “‘Láttam a
végtelen sok kunt és tatárt…’ A tatárjárás emlékei Csanádpalotáról,” in Hadak Útján XXIV, ed.
Csilla Balogh and Balázs Major (Budapest and Esztergom: Archaeolingua, 2015), 755–76.

minted between 1235 and 1241, were found below one of the remains. In addition
to a hidden assemblage of a sword and agricultural tools, a stallion buried with
steppe-style iron stirrups and gilded silver ornaments also was unearthed at the
site. The ornaments might have been parts of a headdress. Based on the stylistic
attributes of these ornaments, the excavators argued that the stallion’s owner may
have belonged to either the Mongol or the Cuman elite who served in the Mongol
army.108 The few torched structures and the dearth of metal finds at Csanádpalota-
Dávid-halom suggests that most of the residents fled the village prior to the arrival
of the Mongols.
Precisely dating destruction episodes in such a turbulent era can be difficult,
but we are confident in associating the violence at the sites just discussed with the
1241 to 1242 period. With the exception of Dunaföldvár-Ló-hegy and Onga-
Ócsanálos, each site yielded coins that date no later than the beginning of the
1240s. Thus, devastation and massacre at these settlements could not occur during
the Mongol operations in 1285 or the retreat of the Cumans in 1282. Since the
Mongols did not cross the Danube in 1285, the same applies for Dunaföldvár-
Ló-hegy, and the radiocarbon date from Onga-Ócsanálos securely assigns the site
decades before these later conflicts. It is also notable that, based on their closing
dates, fewer than ten coin hoards may potentially be associated with the second
Mongol invasion,109 as opposed to the about one hundred hoards from across the
Hungarian Kingdom with terminus post quem of coins not exceeding the beginning
of the 1240s and implying that they might have been buried in the ground during
the period of the 1241–42 operations.110 Therefore, the archaeological record
reaffirms historians’ interpretations assuming a much less severe impact of the
Mongol campaign on the realm in 1285.
Although literary sources are clear that both the retreating Cumans and the
invading Mongols in 1241 and 1242 were responsible for extensive devastation in
the kingdom, the archaeological data infer that the studied sites were products of
the Mongol invasion, and not the retreat of the Cumans. For reasons similar to
those addressed at Orosháza-Bónum, Cumans could not be responsible for the
devastation of Csanádpalota-Dávid-halom, Dunaföldvár-Ló-hegy on the right
bank of the Danube, or of sites north of their main settlement territory, such as
Hejőkeresztúr-Vizekköze, Onga-Ócsanálos, and likely Cegléd-Madarászhalom.
Concerning the territory of the Danube-Tisza Interfluve, however, when
archaeological data on violent devastation is present at late Árpádian Age sites,
Cuman attacks also must be considered as potentially liable. On the other hand,
the archaeological record of violence at settlements in the interfluve corresponds
remarkably well to those that unambiguously fell victim to the Mongol raids in
108. Gallina and Gulyás, “Láttam a végtelen,” 762.

109. V. Székely, “Megjegyzések a késő Árpád-kori éremleletek keltezéséhez,” in A numiz-
matika és a társtudományok, ed. Ádám Nagy (Szeged: Móra Ferenc Múzeum, 1994), 115–24.
110. Tóth, “A tatárjárás korának”; V. Székely, “Tatárjárás és numizmatika”; Vargha, Hoards,
Grave Goods, Jewellery.

1241–42; therefore, it is likely that Mongol forces imposed the destruction and
massacres at Szank-Haladás Tsz. II., Kiskunmajsa-Jonathermál Kelet, and Bugac-
Pétermonostora.
Assessing the Mongol Devastation at the Local Scale: Tactics and Actions
As illustrated in the previous section, similar to Orosháza-Bónum, the
methodological approach we proposed concerning the archaeological correlates of
the Mongol attacks on rural settlements has been productive when assessing the
data from a number of Hungarian sites. Furthermore, the regular co-occurrence of
specific archaeological features at these settlements permits us to make inferences
about the responses of local communities to the Mongol operations in 1241–42,
as well as to single out further potential archaeological signatures relating to the
raiders’ practices that remained unnoted in literary accounts.
The following analysis assesses recurring patterns in the archaeological record
as they relate to relevant historical accounts and reconstructs the tactics and
actions of both the local population and the attackers at raided settlements. It
does so by following a chronological sequence—from locals learning about the
approach of the Mongols, through the attacks, to the actions and processes that
occurred shortly after the devastation of villages. Understanding each of these
aspects provides us with important information in regard to the intentions of the
Mongols in the wake of their victory.
The archaeological record and the literary accounts show the villagers taking a
variety of actions to avert and decrease the impact of the Mongol campaign. These
actions were likely influenced by the flow of information around the kingdom.
Based on the degree of destruction and the frequency of human remains and
valuable artifacts found at the excavated settlements, as well as by considering
textual data, three major patterns can be discerned in respect to the responses of
local populations to the Mongol operations.
First, when word of the approach of raiding forces was available, as noted
in literary accounts, settlements commonly were evacuated and people fled
to either fortified sites or hiding places, such as woods or marshlands. Several
forms of archaeological evidence are available for such a response. There are
numerous hoards of valuables, including ones with heavy and bulky agricultural
tools. There is also a striking contrast between the small number of settlements
that show evidence of massacre and devastation and the much larger number of
contemporaneous sites (also archaeologically investigated), likely abandoned in
this period without evidence of violence.111 In addition, we can interpret those
111. For example, in the year 2011 alone, seventy-five Árpádian Age settlements were
subject to excavations to a various extent in eastern Hungary, all while producing no archaeo-
logical evidence for violence. Júlia Kisfaludi, Judit Kvassay, and Attila Kreiter, eds., Régészeti
kutatások Magyarországon/Archaeological Investigations in Hungary 2011 (Budapest: Hungarian
National Museum, 2018). It is important to note, however, that the currently known, relatively
low number of sites with evidence for devastation and massacre might not be indicative of the

cases where a low degree of destruction and a small number of human remains
occur relative to the extent of the excavated portion of sites (e.g., Cegléd-
Madarászhalom, Csanádpalota-Dávid-halom, Onga-Ócsanálos), as meaning that
locals had received some information about the approach of the Mongols, but
the evacuation of the villages might have been incomplete. As exemplified by the
bodies found at Cegléd-Madarászhalom and Csanádpalota-Dávid-halom, those
who stayed, deliberately or accidentally, and attempted to hide, also fell victim
many times to the marauding Mongols.
Lastly, when a high frequency of destroyed structures and slaughtered
individuals occurs at settlement sites, it implies that either no information regarding
a potential assault was available and these villages suffered surprise attacks, or the
inhabitants were aware of the upcoming attack but decided to stay and resist.
Clear archaeological evidence for the latter case is so far absent. As indicated by
both the archaeological record and historical accounts, resistance in rural areas
typically occurred at specific, non-residential places that frequently were central
in the social landscape.112 Yet, surprise attacks on non-evacuated villages with
little or no intention of resistance seems more common, as evidenced by the wide
range of age cohorts represented in the skeletal assemblages from several sites
(e.g., Dunaföldvár-Ló-hegy, Orosháza-Bónum, Kiskunmajsa-Jonathermál Kelet).
Furthermore, the numerous valuable objects found in buildings or dispersed
across the sites are indicative of surprise attacks as well (e.g., Hejőkeresztúr-
Vizekköze, Orosháza-Bónum). Some of these sites also yielded archaeological
features indicating villagers’ despairing attempts to hide from the attackers (e.g.,
Dunaföldvár-Ló-hegy, possibly Szank-Haladás Tsz. II.).
The despair of rural settlements reflects the apparent failure of a central political
authority to arrange and coordinate local resistance or systematic evacuations, or at
least a failure to do so uniformly throughout the realm.113 Individual villages and
actual impact of the Mongol invasion. Because of the long-term or permanent relocation, or
annihilation, of populations that could have cleaned up raided settlements shortly after violent
episodes, settlement sites located in areas where Mongol control was present for a longer period
of time, such as the Danube-Tisza Interfluve, are more likely to produce evidence for violence
than those located in areas where the presence of Mongol troops was ephemeral and the local
population was exposed to violence for a shorter period of time and/or to a lesser extent. In these
latter territories, cleaning up activities soon after the violent episodes, including formally burying
the dead in cemeteries, makes it hard to identify archaeological traces and might fundamentally
account for the low number of sites with evidence for the Mongol invasion in Hungary. The lack
of archaeological data for devastation and massacres by the Cumans in 1241 and 1282 as well as
the Mongols in 1285 might be interpreted similarly.
112. Accumulating archaeological data from the Danube-Tisza Interfluve indicate that
the construction of small fortifications surrounding churches was a common practice in some
regions. See note 67. These regions might have been located particularly on the Great Hungar-
ian Plain where strong castles such as those in northern Hungary, Transdanubia, or Transylvania
were not present.
113. It is difficult to assess whether small fortifications besieged by the Mongols (see note

towns, thrown back on informal local networks to acquire information, proved highly
vulnerable to the Mongols’ fast-moving, so-called “Bush Clump” strategy. Mongol
forces travelled in small parties radiating out from the main armies, allowing them
to spread their effect broadly and usually by surprise. They then relied on speedy
communication and movement to re-concentrate their forces if threatened.114
Those small raiding parties appear to have used violence on rural villages in
more or less standard ways, both during the raid and in the immediate aftermath.
Archaeologically, it is indicated by the high degree of similarity in the spatial
distribution and condition of human remains at settlements. When excavations
yielded many bodies, they frequently were found in multiple sections of the
studied areas (e.g., Orosháza-Bónum, Dunaföldvár-Ló-hegy). This spatial pattern
implies surprise attacks during which the assailants were ravaging the villages in
relatively large numbers, from multiple directions, and remarkably rapidly. This
strategy would prevent most of the inhabitants from assembling at particular
locations within the settlements. When mutilated body parts occur across the
sites, it also suggests sweeping actions during which taking captives was not
the primary goal. Such a pattern could fit with the Mongols’ practice of using
retributive violence to establish control, but it could also represent the “population
elimination” option of steppe conquest, especially since the thirteenth-century
Hungarian peasant population was ill-suited for incorporation into the Mongol
army. Moreover, female and child remains dominate the osteological assemblages
of massacred settlement sites, which could support those accounts that recorded
the dragging away of men for use as captive shields and “forlorn hopes” in future
Mongol operations.115 The abandoned fields and stock also had real value. The
more portable plunder, usually carefully distributed among the Mongol soldiery,
represented success to all concerned, and thus legitimated the leadership.116
Completing the pattern of conquest by population elimination, in several
instances human remains are found in high frequency within specific areas of
the sites. In accordance with the written sources, these clusters manifest the
67) were built as part of a centralized initiative of the Hungarian state in preparation for the
Mongol invasion, or if they were constructed by threatened local populations. In this respect, one
of King Béla IV’s land charters provides important evidence for fortification works without the
involvement of a central authority to provide refuge for the nearby population. Szentpétery, Az
Árpád-házi királyok, 816a. p., II. 21–22; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 185. B. Szabó’s suggestion that enclo-
sures like Csengele-Fecskés could have been constructed by a few hundred people in two to three
days further supports a lack of state-sponsored fortification initiatives during the Mongol inva-
sion. B. Szabó, A tatárjárás, 147. The charters also refer to other forms of decentralized resistance
in the Hungarian Kingdom. Nagy, Tatárjárás, 193.
114. Onon, Secret History, 287. Also: May, “Mongol Art of War and the Tsunami Strategy,”
33. For the Bush Clump strategy during the Hungarian campaign, see Yvo de Narbonne’s letter
in Giles, Matthew Paris’s English History, 472.
115. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 167; Dawson, Mission to Asia, 36, 45.
116. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 191.

last stage of the attacks when survivors were rounded up at particular spots and
systematically slaughtered. At Orosháza-Bónum, executions were performed at the
eastern edge of the village and may have been followed by the mutilation of several
individuals. Additionally, although a relatively small section of the settlement has
been excavated at Bugac-Pétermonostora, the murder of six individuals found in a
discrete cluster might have taken place in an identical setting.
Assessment of the available data from settlements massacred by the Mongols
in Hungary also raises the possibility that immediately after the completion of the
assaults the raiders may have performed sacrificial offerings and feasts. During
rituals, the mass execution of people might have been accompanied by animal
sacrifices. Slaughtered animals, especially dogs and horses, are evident at multiple
sites, in close association with the destruction of the villages and often spatially
associated with human remains (e.g., Orosháza-Bónum, Bugac-Pétermonostora,
Dunaföldvár-Ló-hegy). Textual evidence from The Secret History of the Mongols
supports interpreting these remains as traces of shamanistic sacrificial ceremonies.
Such rituals consecrated the head, hooves, internal organs (especially, heart and
lungs), and the skin of animals to supernatural forces.117 Furthermore, other
animal remains indicate the likelihood of feasting after the assaults. At Orosháza-
Bónum, for example, the cluster of dismembered human and partial horse remains
spatially coincided with large amounts of sheep/goat and cattle bones exhibiting
butchering and cutting marks. Like the horse and human remains, these bones also
date to the final stage of the village.118 Thomas of Split’s report of a Mongol feast
that followed the mass execution of Hungarian captives bears close resemblance
to the interpretation of archaeological findings revealed at Orosháza-Bónum.119
In conquest process terms, these sacrificial rituals and feasting practices likely
had little meaning for the Hungarian population, who were already being violently
excluded.120 The rituals would, however, have been continuations of the mechanisms
of sanctity and legitimacy that the Mongols had been using to weld together what
was by then a Turco-Mongol army composed of many steppe peoples. At this point
during the Mongols’ still rapid expansion it is only reasonable to expect to find
multiple types of conquest management in play: the normal steppe expectations,
but now also emerging variations on conquest processes normally used by sedentary
117. See Onon, Secret History, 41 n.93, 48 n.112, 206 n.498.

118. The full archaeological description and assessment of data concerning rituals and
feasting discussed in this section is beyond the purview of this article but will be published
elsewhere.
119. Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops, 295.
120. To be sure, as in other parts of their empire, the Mongols likely spared and gathered
up some craftsmen and many women. For examples in historical accounts regarding sparing
craftsmen, see Ata-Malik Juvaini, Genghis Khan. The History of the World Conqueror, trans. John
A. Boyle (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 127; Peter Olbricht and Elisabeth
Pinks, eds. and trans., Meng-ta pei-lu und Hei-ta shih-lüeh: chinesische Gesandtenberichte über die
frühen Mongolen 1221 und 1237 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1980), 175; Dawson, Mission
to Asia, 38, 42.

state-based forces, including the imposition of bureaucracy to manage and profit

from the survivors.121 In Hungary such management seems only to have been
attempted in passing, since the Mongols left the kingdom so quickly.
The human and animal remains from the studied settlements also speak
to events in the weeks or months after an attack. Human remains commonly
were buried in settlement features, such as pits, semi-subterranean buildings, and
ditches, instead of the villages’ cemeteries. In fact, occasionally the bodies may
have remained unburied forever (e.g., Bugac-Pétermonostora).122 Similar to the
case of Orosháza-Bónum, by the time these interments took place, the bodies and
mutilated body parts were decomposed to a great extent, and were not collected
and buried in a single place but were pulled into the nearest open features, perhaps
in fear of the return of the raiders or of the resurgence of epidemics. Postmortem
burning on human bones in buildings imply that these features were frequently
torched, presumably in order to avert disease outbreaks (e.g., Kiskunmajsa-
Jonathermál Kelet, possibly Szank-Haladás Tsz. II.). As a result, although
postmortem scavenger consumption may have occurred, such as at Kiskunmajsa-
Jonathermál Kelet, and contributed to the higher degree of fragmentation of
the bones, the spatial distribution of skeletal remains at settlement sites is still
indicative of the locations where the individuals passed away. The same applies
for animal carcasses left dead in the course of the attack or killed and butchered
during sacrifices or feasts by the raiders.
Finally, multiple cutting marks suggestive of butchering on human long bones
from Orosháza-Bónum and Kiskunmajsa-Jonathermál Kelet may indicate that
cannibalism occurred in some instances. These data seem to support the literary
accounts of cannibalism among Hungarians as a result of famine. Furthermore,
some contemporary authors also reported that the Mongols consumed human
flesh and blood for other reasons as well, such as deterrence and punishment of
the locals. These accounts, however, are usually believed to have been rhetorical
devices with which to demonize the invaders.123
121. For hints in Hungary, see Master Roger, “Epistle,” 209, 211. The broader problem
of Mongol bureaucracy is complex but need not detain us here. Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan,
175–96.
122. Historical accounts also note the lack of burying the dead during and after the Mongol
invasion. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 207, 225; Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops, 271, 304.
123. For historical accounts and overviews regarding cannibalism among Mongols and
Hungarians in this period, see Giles, Matthew Paris’s English History, 469; Nagy, Tatárjárás, 44;
Daniel Baraz, Medieval Cruelty: Changing Perceptions, Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003), 97–102; Gregory G. Guzman, “Reports of Mon-
gol Cannibalism in the Thirteenth-Century Latin Sources: Oriental Fact or Western Fiction?,”
in Discovering New Worlds: Essays on Medieval Exploration and Imagination, ed. Scott D. Wes-
trem (New York and London: Garland, 1991), 31–68; Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 143;
Rosta, “A tatárjárás régészetének,” 182–85.

Assessing the Mongol Devastation in 1241–42 at the Regional Scale: Maneu-

vers and Consequences
Thus far we have used the archaeological record rather generically, disconnected
from specific campaign narratives, to better understand tactics and actions at rural
settlements during the Mongol assaults in the Hungarian Kingdom. Nevertheless,
the increasing amount and quality of archaeological data also supplement, and to a
great extent verify, the historical accounts, providing an interpretative framework
to outline the Mongol operations in 1241–42 more adequately at the regional scale
as well. This is particularly true for the micro-region around Orosháza-Bónum, as
well as Csanádpalota-Dávid-halom within the Körös-Maros Interfluve.
After Kadan’s troops occupied northern Transylvania, including Kolozsvár
and Várad, and destroyed Tamáshida, this army trailed southwest through the
Körös-Maros Interfluve toward the important cities of Csanád and Szeged (see
Figure 1).124 The village of Orosháza-Bónum was located along this trail and
might have been plundered by a raiding group of Kadan’s army in the early
summer of 1241 at the latest.
Master Roger’s narrative expressively describes the siege of a nearby fortification
at Pereg.125 Although its precise location remains unknown, the fortification might
have been situated about 20–25 kilometers southeast of the Orosháza-Bónum
village, in the vicinity of the current town of Kaszaper (see Figure 1).126 According
to Master Roger, the inhabitants of some seventy villages gathered at Pereg hoping
to survive the Mongol raids. Following the systematic assault of the nearby villages
and by using their captives as shields, the Mongols besieged the enclosure of Pereg
and after a week of attack they annihilated everyone. The archaeological record
suggests that the inhabitants of the Orosháza-Bónum village, or at least a number
of primarily young individuals, did not leave their homes for Pereg. In fact, because
Master Roger specifically mentions Muslims as assault troops used during the siege
of Pereg, and the archaeological data infer that the Orosháza-Bónum settlement
may have been occupied by a Muslim community, it is possible that captives from
this village also participated, and died, as forced cannon fodder at Pereg.127
While in northern Hungary the destruction of villages such as Szabolcs-
Kisfalud and Hejőkeresztúr-Vizekköze, as well as the inhumations found at Muhi
and Onga-Ócsanálos, might have been associated with the advance of the main
Mongol army led by Batu Khan in the spring of 1241, the troops of Kadan and
the other forces that had previously invaded southern Transylvania, commanded
by Böchek and Büri, reunited at Csanád; Csanádpalota-Dávid-halom likely fell
124. Today Cluj-Napoca, Oradea, and Tămaşda in Rumania.

125. Master Roger, “Epistle,” 211–13.
126. László Blazovich, A Körös–Tisza–Maros köz középkori településrendje (Békéscsaba–
Szeged: Békés és Csongrád Megye Tanácsa, 1985), 40; Zoltán Rózsa, “Amiért 70 falu népének
vére folyt. A peregi vérmező lokalizálásának kérdése,” Mozaikok Orosháza és vidéke múltjából 9
(2013): 3–11.
127. See note 87.

victim to these maneuvers (see Figure 1). Learning of the Mongols’ approach, the
majority of the occupants of this village also may have fled to Pereg, located ca.
20–25 kilometers to the north.128
Furthermore, these reunited troops might have been responsible for the
devastation and massacres at the sites of Szank-Haladás Tsz. II., Kiskunmajsa-
Jonathermál Kelet, and Bugac-Pétermonostora in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve.
Csengele-Fecskés and several other recently identified fortified churches in this
region suggest that, as in the case of Pereg, residents of multiple villages assembled
at these places, and were eventually massacred by the Mongols. These sieges could
have occurred when the Mongol troops were heading toward Pest, as well as over
the course of their year-long stay in the interfluve. These forces may even have taken
part in the assault on the Dunaföldvár-Ló-hegy site and the city of Esztergom
after the Mongol army crossed the Danube and entered Transdanubia in January
1242. The Cegléd-Madarászhalom settlement may have been plundered by either
Batu Khan’s main army or the joined forces that swept through the Plain from the
south (see Figure 1).
Further reinforcing the credibility of settlement archaeological and historical
datasets concerning the Mongol maneuvers, the geographic distribution of
settlement sites with evidence for extensive destruction and massacre by the
Mongols in 1241–42 coincides with that of hoards associated with this campaign.
These hidden treasures east of the Danube most frequently occur in Northeast
Hungary, the Danube-Tisza Interfluve, and the Körös-Maros Interfluve, whereas
in marshy territories that were unfavorable for large-scale rapid movement and
the supply of troops with large number of horses, like the Körös-Berettyó region,
such hoards and other, clear archaeological evidence for the Mongol invasion
are scarce or lacking. In the western part of the country, Transdanubia, which
in general was less exposed to the Mongol campaign, the majority of hoards are
known from the northeastern territory.129 These data indicate that the settlement
sites and fortified churches with evidence for violent conflicts and devastation,
as well as the hoards buried in the ground about this time, properly outline the
maneuvers of the different Mongol forces across the Hungarian Kingdom.
Archaeological evidence has proven less helpful in reaching firm conclusions
about the extent of population loss resulting from the Mongol campaign. Sites
with traces of devastation and massacre clustering in some regions, and lacking in
others, seem to confirm an uneven exposure of the Hungarian population to the
invasion. However, when it comes to the actual degree of population loss, due to
the few and incompletely excavated sites with evidence for Mongol assaults, as
well as to critical determinants without archaeological signatures (e.g., the number
of captives dragged away or those who fled but died of hunger and epidemics),
site-based research lacks the capacity to contribute to the assessment of the
demographic impact of the invasion.
128. Gallina and Gulyás, “‘Láttam a végtelen,’” footnote 44.

129. See note 110.

Regional-scale settlement archaeological studies also are inconclusive in this

regard for other reasons. For example, the results of a pedestrian survey in the
Orosháza micro-region infer that out of forty-three registered Árpádian Age villages,
thirty-one were abandoned by the end of the period.130 It is possible, however, that
internal social and economic developments in the second half of the period led to the
desertion of many villages, as did a concurrent trend toward settlement nucleation,
in several regions of the Hungarian Kingdom, particularly on the Great Hungarian
Plain, all unrelated to the Mongol conquest in 1241–42.131
Conclusion
The multiple Mongol expeditions into eastern and central Europe in the
thirteenth century left a deep and long-lasting imprint in the histories and the
social memory of the ravaged regions that in some ways persists to the present.
Batu Khan’s invasion of the Hungarian Kingdom in 1241–42 is considered to
have been one of the most destructive Mongol expeditions in Europe, with even
the most conservative estimates proposing a death toll of 200,000–400,000 people
throughout the realm. Until recently, however, evidence for such widespread
destruction was missing from the archaeological record.
Recent excavations have dramatically changed this picture, revealing Árpádian
Age sites with secure associations to the Mongol invasion. Work on the Orosháza-
Bónum site took a multi-disciplinary approach, correlating written records with likely
archaeological signatures, that made it possible to adequately interpret the scale and
characteristics of destruction not only at this site but also at a number of additional
excavated settlements in Hungary. Furthermore, by incorporating data from multiple
sites into our analysis, we were able to identify recurring patterns in the archaeological
record that support inferences about the repertoire of tactics and actions applied by
the raiders and raided of Hungarian rural villages during this military campaign. Our
multi-disciplinary investigations also permitted us to place the Orosháza-Bónum site
in a broader historical context and provide a fairly elaborate insight into the impact of
the Mongol invasion on a particular micro-region of the Great Hungarian Plain.
Extrapolating further, the archaeological evidence here suggests some
conclusions about the Mongols’ motivations for the invasion and how they
130. Júlia Kovalovszki, “Orosháza és környéke a magyar középkorban,” in Orosháza története,

ed. Gyula Nagy (Orosháza: Orosháza Város Tanácsa, 1965), 188. Other studies of regional settle-
ment archaeological data include: Szabolcs Rosta, “Új eredmények a kunok Duna-Tisza közi szál-
lásterületének kutatásában,” in “Kun-kép.” A magyarországi kunok hagyatéka. Tanulmányok Horváth
Ferenc 60. születésnapja tiszteletére, ed. Szabolcs Rosta (Kiskunfélegyháza: Kiskun Múzeum, 2009),
189–91; Rosta, “Pétermonostora pusztulása,” 207–8; Edit Tari, “Pest megye pusztulása a régészeti
adatok tükrében,” in Ritoók and Garam, A Tatárjárás (1241–42), 47–49.
131. György Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország történeti földrajza I. (Budapest: Akadémiai,
1963); Szabó, A falurendszer kialakulása, 144; Ferenc Maksay, A magyar falu középkori településrendje
(Budapest: Akadémiai, 1971), 83–84; Blazovich, A Körös-Tisza-Maros köz, 59–61; Laszlovszky,
“Tatárjárás és régészet,” 462–63; Szűcs, Az utolsó Árpádok, 5; Rosta, “Új eredmények,” 189.

imagined taking advantage of its resources. The narrative sources suggest that at
least part of the motivation lay within the Mongols’ mode of using retributive force
to control submitted populations. The flight of the Cumans into Hungary in 1239
brought the Mongols in pursuit. To be sure, at this point the Mongols’ sense of an
imperial, heaven-sent mandate to rule the world was fully in operation, but the
immediate objective, fully in accord with the norms of intra-steppe warfare, was
to punish the Cumans and their Hungarian protectors. The material record and
the rapid Mongol departure both support this notion, even if the Great Hungarian
Plain was sufficient to sustain a Mongol army (and that is still a debatable point).
Other scholars have suggested the 1241–42 campaign into Hungary was a
normal part of Mongol methods, a preparatory raid and reconnaissance to terrify
the population and prepare for a later more thorough conquest. This is not an
unreasonable interpretation, given how Subedei’s earlier “raid” through much of
Russia seemed to fulfill that function for their later return.132 The destruction of
the villages in the Hungarian Kingdom, the archaeologically confirmed slaughter
of all ages and sexes (sometimes delayed for use as cannon fodder), and the lack
of established garrisons to consolidate power through latent force also hints at the
Mongols’ continued traditional nomadic approach to conquest: plunder, take herds,
and incorporate useful people. The Hungarian peasants were not seen as especially
useful within the still mainly nomadic force, although there was some initial use
of them as auxiliaries, something the Mongols were already doing with other
tributary sedentary powers. Efforts at establishing legitimacy and sanctity through
rituals, feasting, and the rewards of successful invasion were directed primarily at
the conquered peoples already in their ranks, not at the Hungarians. In one sense,
we can say that the Mongols, despite embracing an ideology of world conquest,
continued to operate according to a more traditional strategic culture derived from
life on the steppe, one that incorporated useful peoples and relied on reputation
as a form of latent force to secure the fruits of victory. Culture, including strategic
culture, has inertia; it changes slowly even in the face of changed conditions, not
unlike the slow shift of the U.S. military’s strategic culture toward accepting the
mission of nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan, after decades of resisting that
mission and lacking the institutional structures that it required.
132. Rogers, “An Examination,” 14–15.
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The Mongol Campaign in Hungary 1241 1242

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The Mongol Campaign in Hungary, 1241–1242: The

Archaeology and History of Nomadic Conquest and Massacre

Attila Gyucha, Wayne E. Lee, and Zoltán Rózsa

generated or supervised by members of the elite.1 This general truism is especially

1022  THE JOURNAL OF

include: What role did population destruction or absorption or displacement play

A Theory of Conquest Consolidation: The Four Pillars

MILITARY HISTORY  1023

1024  THE JOURNAL OF

Table 1. Conquest types in war between sedentary agricultural states

Each of these types of conquest required some form of consolidation to make

MILITARY HISTORY  1025

conquered population represented a significant challenge. Creating a legitimate

1026  THE JOURNAL OF

Conquest Among Steppe Nomadic Pastoral Tribes

8. Bat-Ochir Bold, Mongolian Nomadic Society: A Reconstruction of the “Medieval” History of

MILITARY HISTORY  1027

Table 2. “Conquest” types in war among steppe tribes

1028  THE JOURNAL OF

MILITARY HISTORY  1029

bureaucracy on the steppe was minimalist at best—although successful steppe

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MILITARY HISTORY  1031

The Problem of Massacres and Archaeology

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Roman terroristic practice toward communities that refused surrender.”23 Despite

MILITARY HISTORY  1033

dead promises little in respect to understanding conquest processes, as in most

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The Hungarian Kingdom and the Mongol Invasions

MILITARY HISTORY  1035

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MILITARY HISTORY  1037

1038  THE JOURNAL OF

MILITARY HISTORY  1039

During the following decades, military conflicts regularly occurred between

The Narrative Sources for the 1241–42 Mongol Campaign

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MILITARY HISTORY  1041

1042  THE JOURNAL OF

Problems and Possibilities in the Archaeological Study of the Mongol Invasion

MILITARY HISTORY  1043

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MILITARY HISTORY  1045

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78. Thomas of Split, History of the Bishops, 277.

MILITARY HISTORY  1047

Methodologically, the formulation of valid archaeological and historical

A Case Study: The Árpádian Age Village of Orosháza-Bónum

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MILITARY HISTORY  1049

associated with regular household practices, including large amounts of burned

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MILITARY HISTORY  1051

Figure 5: The bodies of a female and

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Beyond Orosháza-Bónum: Regional Evidence for the Mongol Invasion in

MILITARY HISTORY  1053

92. Mária Wolf, “Árpád-kori település Hejőkeresztúr határában,” in A népvándorláskor fi-

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96. Magdolna Szilágyi, “Perished Árpádian-age village at Dunaföldvár,” Acta Archaeologica

MILITARY HISTORY  1055

102. Rosta, “A tatárjárás régészetének,” 153–66.

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