Pannonian region, because the area of Lake Balaton was crossed by roads connecting the Danube and the Mediterranean. At the end of the 8th century, the Franks under Charlemagne overthrew the Avar Empire and invaded the Pannonian plains. The Christian Romanized populace living around Keszthely quickly adopted the customs of western Christendom, which meant among other things that they buried their dead without grave goods so now it is impossible to identify them. The Fenékpuszta fortress was repaired again in the 9th century. Its walls accommodated and gave shelter to the descendants of the Avars and the Slavic people who had migrated in at the beginning of the century. Their cemeteries maintained many of the pagan customs. Handicrafts By the end of the 6th century, the Romanized populace was mainly buried in the row cemeteries that were newly laid out in the area of the late Roman fortresses of Keszthely (Castellum) and Pécs (Sopianae) [in southwestern Hungary]. During the period of Avar rule, Romanized and Byzantine people arrived from the Balkans, and they helped develop a community of skilled artisans. These communities, probably Christian, preserved or renewed their artistic relations with the Romanized population of the Mediterranean. The characteristic garb of women included earrings with basket-shaped pendants, disc brooches with early Christian motifs, and garment pins. The early Christian symbols include crosses, bird-shaped brooches and pins decorated with bird figures (one bird-shaped brooch bears an incised cross). The Romanized populace of Pannonia in general became ‘Avarized’, and their ‘island’ of late antique culture is documented only in the immediate vicinity of Keszthely, where their traditional costume was worn until the beginning of the 9th century. Language The name Keszthely (IPA ) could be related to the Istriot–Venetian castei, which means "castle", and is probably an original word of the Pannonian Romance language, according to the Austrian linguist Julius Pokorny. He also posits that the word Pannonia is derived via Illyrian from a Proto-Indo-European root *pen- "swamp, water, wet". If true, that would suggest that the pre-Roman language of Pannonia was an Illyrian language. According to Romanian linguist Alexandru Rossetti, Pannonian Romance probably contributed to the creation of the 300 basic words of the "Latin substratum" of the Balkan Romance languages. Some scholars argue that the Pannonian Romance lacks clear evidences of existence, because no written sources exist. However, according to Árthur Sós, in some of the 6,000 tombs of the