For several decades now Hungarian historians have argued about whether the Hungarian tribes reached the Carpathian Basin towards the end of the 9th century. The earlier scholarly consensus that they conquered the country in 896 was disputed by the archeologist Gyula László, who maintained that the 896 conquerors had found their own kin already in occupation. So far László and his followers have relied mainly on archeological evidence. It was pointed out that the invaders were far fewer in number than those already in residence and that the burial grounds of the age of the Árpád dynasty offer no physical anthropological evidence of end of 9th century immigrants. The 896 conquest, generally accepted since the second half of the 19th century, is largely based on an interpretation of documentary evidence and on linguistic data.

Gábor Vékony, who teaches Prehistory at Eötvös Loránd University, maintains that a recent find offers evidence which backs the theory of the Dual Conquest. On March 24th 1999, diggings at what is presumed to have been the centre of a clan at a lea called Alsóbuý near the village of Bodrog in County Somogy, revealed a part of a bellows belonging to an iron furnace. its importance lies not in its nature as a tool, but in the runic inscription it carries.

Excavation at Bodrog has been going on since 1979. A team headed by Kálmán Magyar of the County Somogy Museum has so far found traces of three Árpád-age settlements, two churches and a monastery of a type associated with a particular clan. On a mound in the vicinity forty-five iron furnaces were found below a layer containing 11th century items, thirty-seven of which have already been excavated. Surprisingly, the characteristics of these furnaces differed from those of earlier known Avar-age furnaces. The same layer also contained pottery. "It is highly probable that this can be dated early 10th century," Kálmán Magyar stated with conviction. There is not much chance today of establishing which furnace the bellows potsherd belonged to. Péter Márton, of the Science Faculty of the Eötvös Loránd University, used archeomagnetics to confirm the hypothesis that the bellows fragment is of the same age as the furnaces. The essence of the method is that the deviation between the magnetic and the geographic north differs over a period of time. Metal pollution in the fired clay lines up in the period of cooling according to the pole valid at the time. Since these are available to archeologists, dating on that basis is relatively precise.

Gábor Vékony examined the runic inscription in April 1999. He established that the incisions were made in the soft clay, before firing, their terminus ad quem was therefore the 10th century. Vékony claimed that he could read and understand the inscription. He argued that it was in Hungarian, and in the Székely runic script with which historians have been familiar for some centuries.

Inscriptions in several kinds of runic script have been found in the Carpathian Basin. Most are either of the Avar age or the Székely type. So far only relatively late Székely runic script has been persuasively deciphered. Though there have been efforts aplenty to make sense of the others, none of these has been accepted by the consensus of scholars. Cryptographers presume, however, that these scripts are all related to each other and very likely also related to Central Asian ancient Turkic runic script, which was deciphered in the 19th century. Thus they all run from right to left, as against Germanic runic script which -- like Latin script -- runs from left to right.

The two major survivals of Avar-age runic script are an inscription on an object which is part of the Nagyszentmiklós (Gross Sankt Nikolaus/San Nicolae) Treasure and incisions on a pin-case which turned up near Szarvas. The Gross Sankt Nikolaus Treasure also contains an inscription in Greek script, but not in Greek, which has not been decyphered yet. Nor can we tell the language of the inscription -- or the ethnic origin of the writers. Gábor Vékony suspects that this text too may be Hungarian. The shape of the letters made it certain that the two scripts are identical.

Székely runic script is first mentioned in Simon Kézai’s 13th-century chronicle. He states that the Székely, after coagulating with the Blacks (or Vlachs), "I am told, used their script." This, in any event, suggests that the Székely used a script with which they were not familiar in the Royal Court. The 15th-century Thuróczy Chronicle reports that the Székely know how to make some sort of incisions in wood, which they employ as script. An example of the actual Székely alphabet survives from that time, on a later colligatum of a 1483 incunabulum, in the castle library at Nikolsburg (Mikulovo) in Moravia.

It is noteworthy that in practice the 15th century is a terminus a quo for this script. Some went as far as arguing that humanists associated with King Matthias invented it. "No competent authority would agree with that now, there is no doubt, however, that this is when it became fashionable." (András Róna-Tas, an authority on the topic). This fashion grew and in 1598 János Telegdi published a book on Székely runic script. One and all indulged in the script, numerous texts were incised, causing no end of dating problems for later historians. It is rarer on paper but was much favoured for cryptograms in the 17th and 18th centuries by the initiated.

Survivals are rare and there is no direct evidence whatever but, András Róna-Tas remains unshaken in his belief that Székely runic script was part of the life of the conquerors. In other words, the Magyar tribes were literate in their own way before they became literate in Latin. He does not explain, however, why runic script survived only amongst the Székely, who live in eastern Transylvania, the only ones to use it after the 13th century.

The origin of the Székely also still puzzles historians. Of yore there were some who identified them as the descendants of nomads, who formed a tribal confederation with the Hungarians, an advance guard in battle, and frontiersmen after settlement. Current research confirms them as frontiersmen, not only in the eastern marches of Transylvania, where they survive, but also in the environs of Pozsony (Bratislava-Pressburg) and in Western Transdanubia, in Zala and Vas counties where in the őrség (the March) toponyms still bear witness to their earlier presence. In Transylvania they first lived in what, between the 13th and 19th centuries, was known as the Terra Saxonis, moving on to their present pastures in the 13th century when the Saxons arrived.

Vékony reads the inscription on the bellows as "fonak" which he interprets as "fúnák", which in the Hungarian of the time corresponds to "I should like to blow". "This is a telling inscription, very likely linked to the magic of production." Vékony explains. "In other words, the conquest smiths used the inscription in the hope of improving the quality of their work." But this is nowhere near the end of the argument. János Gömöri, the authority on iron-making in the Middle Ages, reconstructing the bellows, maintains that the original text of the inscription must have been longer, and that it very likely was made up of several words. This appears to be confirmed by the space before the fourth letter reading from the right, suggesting that this fourth and apparently last letter is the first of a new word. This argument, of course, makes nonsense of Vékony’s reading.

Bellows fragments from the Alsóbű excavations -- one bearing four runes -- and a complete clay bellows

Lately, linguists too have objected to Vékony’s theory. "This text is at least four hundred years older than the first known example of Székely runic writing" András Róna-Tas pointed out. He mentioned that he already had his doubts when he heard that Vékony’s was a sightreading. "Fundamental changes may occur in a script in the course of the centuries." This makes it doubtful that a text four hundred years earlier than the earliest previously known could be read easily at sight. But there were problems with the reading as such. Two of the four letters have likely links with the Székely runic script, such a link is possible for another, but must be excluded for the fourth. At a discussion held at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, noted linguists, including Professors Benkő and Harmatta, shared Professor Róna-Tas’s doubts concerning the alien nature of this letter in the company of Székely runes. Vékony retorted that a closer look allowed one to recognize a cross in the middle of the letter, thereupon Benkő and Harmatta withdrew, admitting that in that case it could well stand for the phoneme "f". The second sign is the Székely "o". No one disputed that. A number, however, disagreed that this "o" could also be read as "u" (ou) as Vékony did. Vékony argued in defence of his position that later Székely runic script has a separate sign for the letter "u", but when this text was conceived, very likely the same sign was used as for "o". So far, however, such notions met with a categorical rejection.

Vékony identified the third sign as a ligature meaning "na". Professor Róna-Tas categorically rejects this possibility, refering to the fact that such ligatures were only employed once the Latin script came into general use. All were agreed on "k" as the reading of the fourth sign, but Róna-Tas maintained that this kind of runic "k" was only used in high pitched vowel words (Székely runic script has another "k" for deep vowel words), Vékony’s reading of "fúnák" would contravene the laws of vowel harmony. Loránd Benkő furthermore was not happy about the structure of the word "fúnák". That, according to Vékony was made up of the root "fú" and the inflection "-nák". But "fú" in ancient Hungarian is not related to blowing (fúvás) but means mallard. Nor does the suffix "-nák" indicate the optative. Even in the 12th century, the optative included four phonemes, the inscription on the bellows should therefore read "funaik", but Vékony was clearly only able to put three phonemes into his reading. "All this leads me to doubt that these four signs could be read as if they were Hungarian," Benkő concluded.

Vékony, however, not only deciphered the text, he also went on to draw far-reaching conclusions. Referring to the fact that so far Székely runic script inscriptions had only be found in Székely inhabited territory, this new inscription, according to Vékony, may well mean that Hungarian speaking Székely lived in Transdanubia as early as the 10th century. Loránd Benkő granted that this was on the cards but the only linguistic findings that may be relevant to this argument were located in the valley of the Kerka, in the Őrség, near the Austrian border, a relatively long way from County Somogy.

Vékony’s conclusions are even more far-reaching. Given that there is no reference to eastern links in the Alsóbuý material, as one would expect where conquering Hungarians can be presumed, the bellows appear to be blowing fresh air onto the embers of the long-standing dual conquest issue. According to Vékony, the inscription on the bellows-fragment should be connected with the people who lived there and, given that (according to him) the text was Hungarian, it must be attributed to the locals (Székely), and not to tribes which only immigrated at the end of the 9th century -- i.e. to what many would call the second wave. In his view the Kalota (Transylvania) region grave finds -- which can be shown to belong to the Age of the Conquest, confirm his opinion. The runic inscription in that is Turkic, and not Székely. According to Vékony, this only goes to show that the Hungarians who formed part of the Conquest used another kind of runic script, whereas those already in residence, perhaps at Alsóbuý, wrote in the Székely manner.

All the same, many find themselves unable to accept Vékony’s theory. Professor Róna-Tas, for instance, thinks it preposterous to draw such far-reaching conclusions from four signs of disputed reading. Indeed, in cannot even be persuasively established of what kind of runic script they form part. "Not to mention that an inscription on an object cannot offer conclusive evidence regarding the vernacular of a given community."