TORSO OF THE MEDIEVAL VILLAGE IN BELUSA

Belusa is a village situated at central part of the river Vah basin in north-western Slovakia. The salvage excavation of the medieval settlement site was aroused by a motorway construction. The site had been damaged during the building works and only torsos of sunken objects were found. The most frequent finds were fragments of graphitic pottery including storage vessels. Iron slag, analyses of which brought evidence of smithery and also metallurgy in several cases, occurred relatively often, too. The settlement was dated by the pottery to the 12th and 13th centuries. Copper coins of so-called Arabian type minted by the ancient Hungarian king Bela III. or Bela IV. (1190-1240). These coins occur especially along important trade ways. First written reference to Belusa comes from the year 1330 ('terra Belos').