past participle confusion

[charry_008]

Traveling the back roads of Hungary, in 1905 Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály began their pioneering work in ethnomusicology, and they were armed only with an Edison phonograph and insatiable curiosity.
(A) Traveling the back roads of Hungary, in 1905 Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály began their pioneering work in ethnomusicology, and they were armed only
(B) In 1905, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, traveling the back roads of Hungary, began their pioneering work in ethnomusicology, and they were only armed
(C) In 1905 Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály began their pioneering work in ethnomusicology, traveling the back roads of Hungary armed only
(D) Having traveled the back roads of Hungary, in 1905 Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály began their pioneering work in ethnomusicology; they were only armed（C）
(E) Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, in 1905 began their pioneering work in ethnomusicology, traveling the back roads of Hungary, arming themselves only


The Official Answer for this SC is C. Though C seems to be the least wrong answer but I am not convinced with C, especially with the usage of past participle "armed" in C. According to my understanding, and also from some of 800bob posts, I think a past participle refers to adjacent noun, so "armed" in C should refer to "Hungary" but as you can see, armed refers to "Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály". Can someone please explain whether the usage of past particple "armed" in C is GMATically acceptable?

[charry_008]

No replies !?!

[N Z O M N I A C]

C looks good

A,D are out since have "only" before the verb "armed" hence acting as adverb when it needs to act as adjective for edison....

A has modifier problem , who is travelling

E uses participle , even when cause effect is not there...anothe problem is that arming becomes parallel to travelling which is not intended...also I am not sure if a word like "arming" exists

[N Z O M N I A C]

I think because there is no comma between hungary and armed ...u cant say that it modifies hungary