invasion of Thracian-Cimmerian tribes from the northern foreground of the Black Sea started to escalate around 730 BC, in the age of the pre-Scythian immigrations (Mezőcsát group). The fortification of the settlement of the Kyjatice culture on the Vár-hegy [Fort hill] above the city of Eger (but belonging to the town of Felsőtárkány) was built in this particular age (8th century BC, at the beginning of the so-called HaB3 period). Constructing the rampart of the hillfort of the late Bronze Age – early Iron Age may be associated with the first wave of the ingress of the pre-Scythian Mezőcsát group. Who built the fortification is hard to determine: it could have been constructed by the newcomers, or it could be built by the existing peoples against them. In any case, ceramic shapes and decoration types with Babadagian–Besut–Bessarabian–Bulgarian origin have been found in archeological finds at Felsőtárkány. This group of people was aware of iron, and they used Thracian–Cimmerian weaponry and horse tack. The second attempt to solve the mystery is related to a military campaign. Persian king Darius I crossed the river Danube in 513 BC, and got into the land of the Scythians; he was defeated, but his action made Trachian groups of people leave their territories [based on Herodotus]. Archeology regards this age (from the 5th century BC) of the Carpathian basin and the Balkans as culturally coherent. Roman sources mention tribes speaking Thracian languages living in this area. Agrians could arrive to the Bükkalja during this period. However, this Balkanian thread may be pivotal in the research of peoples creating the storage niches and carving the rocks. The Thracian cultic niches or rock shrines in the Rhodope mountains, which – accordingly to Bulgarian researchers – were used for urn funerals in the 1st millennium BC, can be regarded as important analogies, as they may be related to the beehive rocks and rock niches in the Bükkalja. Gallery References "Kaptárkő", Wikipédia (in Hungarian), 2019-05-09, retrieved 2019-05-11 Aerial Photographs Geography of Hungary