Tales from the store: where in the world... (part 5)

After a lot of graft, and research, and looking through numerous articles on the geologist and speleologist Tivadar Kormos (...and boring most people I knew with this whole saga), I found a reference to something that looked promising.

I found another article by Tivadar, written in 1915 "A Devence-barlangí praehístorícus telep
Bíharvármegyében".  In black and white - 'Devence-barlangi' (by now my Hungarian was good enough to spot the word for cave - 'barlang').

He had dug the cave, but now for the tricky bit.  Where exactly was the cave?

Bone needle or point -
labels with two different locations!

I had another clue - the typewritten label not only said 'Devence Cave' but also 'Bihar'.  Initial research brought up places as far afield as India!  However, after a more in-depth search regarding the history, geography and cartography of the Hungarian border I discovered 'Bihor County'. This area had previously (pre-1918) been part of Hungary and subsequently became part of Romania.

Feeling like I'd made another breakthrough, I set back into full research mode, scouring maps for Devence Cave in Romania with no luck.

If in doubt, go back to the publication.  Most archaeological publications will include a decent description of where the site is.  This was no different, apart from it was in Hungarian (and German).  Using both versions, and combining the translations, I managed to get an impression of the site.

Ah Ha! Something here looks familiar...

However, yet another obstacle was the fact that the Hungarian names had been changed (significantly!) when Bihor became part of Romania - for example the town known as Rév in Hungarian became Vadu Crișului in Romanian...  So locating the site was not an easy task!

Eventually, after a lot of comparisons, translations and map trawling I deduced 'Devence Cave' was a slighter lesser explored cave known as Deventului.

Another provenance found, and more objects identified through their illustrations and separated out as definitely from the site of Deventului (a small dance was done in the office that day).

The mystery of Magyar Peterd was also uncovered - another town which had been written down with its Hungarian name.  It's also in Romania, but a different county - the town is now known as

Petreștii de Jos.

More mysteries solved by the (self proclaimed) brilliant documentation assistant.  However, there was one more potential site mystery in the box.  Check back to find out what happened next.