Archaeology
In Pest County it is the responsibility of the Ferenczy Museum Center staff to perform professional archaeological work prescribed for developers and constructors by the special authority’s statements.
For information and administration in relation to contracts and orders, contact:
Rita Marsi
Phone: +36-30-4091882.
Email: marsi.rita@muzeumicentrum.hu
The Ferenczy Museum Center has been functioning as a city museum of regional authority since 2013. There are over 5000 registered archaeological sites in our county. This number is continuously increasing thanks to systematic site-explorations. In delivering the archaeological tasks the institution cooperates with other museums in the region. The professional crew is important, besides archaeologists and technicians we have the assistance of a geoinformatic engineer and a surveyor helping with the fieldwork and processing. Being an accredited institution, FMC possesses enough tools of sufficient quality that allow for carrying out excavations and processing them.
We cover the whole country from three bases: in Cegléd, Gödöllő, and Szentendre, where the head office of the museum is located.
Our staff work in teams in several locations when carrying out our general tasks. Archaeological observation and supervision, mostly on smaller construction sites, where we investigate archaeological interest, are part of our daily duties. In addition, we regularly participate in fieldwork for Preliminary Archaeological Documentation during large-scale investment projects coordinated with the body of cultural heritage conservation and as a competent accredited institution in the preliminary excavations of large-scale development projects.
Following excavation fieldwork, we clear, restore, and archive the finds at our archaeological bases and this is also where we place the archaeological objects eventually. The number of archaeological finds placed in the museum has increased to over 10,000 pieces throughout the years due to large-scale investments.
Apart from the mandatory work, the strengthening of ties with museum aficionados interested in archaeology is important for us. Therefore, we organize community archaeology events for the civilians dedicated to cultural heritage. Visitors can join in these excavations and learn about the general tasks and methodologies of demolition and documentation. We have also organized several conferences and workshops with such main topics.
We display our results in exhibitions and publications. We aim at opening archaeological exhibitions each year in any exhibition space of the Ferenczy Museum Center.
It Is not Gone without a Trace, the exhibition presenting material from the Hungarian Conquest, stands out among the many archaeological exhibitions on the past. It was organized around presenting the finds from the unique grave in Pest County with the sabretache.
The Archaeological Collection
The archaeological collection of the Ferenczy Museum Center covers the whole area of Pest County. The institution, formerly called the Directorate of Pest County Museums, has been collecting archaeological finds since the 1960s. The sources of these are excavations, fieldwalking, and donations. The main task of the museum’s archaeologists is to excavate, document, and process the archaeological heritage in the area of Pest County before or parallel with construction earthworks. The collection is continuously expanding and has above 300,000 artefacts, mostly consisting of ceramics and metal finds. The finds cover a wide spectrum, from the early stage of the Prehistoric Age, to the New Stone Age, to the Late Middle Ages. The museum’s archaeologists process and store these in three locations in Cegléd, Gödöllő, and Szentendre. The Cegléd Warehouse has mostly artefacts excavated during the building of Road 4 and the eastern section of the M0 motorway. In Gödöllő material from the eastern part of Pest County is kept. Szentendre holds objects from the west of the county and a local excavated Roman camp in Szentendre.
The basis of the numismatic collection is the Pest County Numismatic Collection established in 1978. It holds approximately 47,000 objects at present. The collection of coins with no known provenance is selected in accordance with the different periods, nicely representing the development of monetary history throughout time. The site-found coin collection, however, carries a lot of information in relation to the archaeological site. In many cases it is thanks to such information that the archaeological chronology of the investigated archaeological phenomenon can be identified. There are several medal coin finds among the coins of archaeological age. Hoards of several hundreds of coins are not a rarity either. The modern age collection is also significant and was generated mostly through gifts and partly by acquisition. The numismatic collection is also used to compile other the Pest County archaeological or historical exhibitions and houses numerous research projects. We cordially welcome national and foreign researchers and professionals in all our institutions! Our Gödöllő base functions as a study collection. Following preliminary registration our exhibition of representative objects found in the county area may be visited.