The ancient hungarians [antikvár]

PREFACEThe first Conquest period grave was found in the 1830s at Benepuszta near Kecskemét. Since then, hundreds of cemeteries and thousands of graves have been brought to light by sheer good luck and the archaeologists' trowels. During the one and a half centuries that have elapsed, Hungarian archaeology has indeed come a long way, enhancing our understanding of the past and painting a portrait of the life, the beliefs and the art of the ancient Hungarians. This was all the more necessary because there are barely any written sources dealing with the period between the Conquest and the foundation of the medieval Hungarian state, and the little that survives is mainly concerned with the campaigns and the military feats of the ancient Hungarians.It is hardly mere coincidence that at the time of the Millennium only the graves of high-ranking men buried with their saddle-horse and their weapons were identified with the ancient Hungarians. Since then, thanks to the changes in archaeological techniques and attitudes we know that the bulk of the ancient Hungarians did not wear clothes profusely ornamented with gold and silver and that they were skilled not only in martial, hut also in other arts. The commoners, engaged in agriculture and stockbreeding, mostly spoke Hungarian and regarded themselves as Hungarians who also arrived in the new homeland girdled by the Carpathians following the flight of the mythical Miraculous Stag. It was the sweat of their brows, and not the booty brought back from the military expeditions, that created the flourishing economy of the new homeland. The booty was the privilege of a very few.Following the end of the military expeditions, the élite clinging to its ancestral nomadic traditions lost not merely its main source of wealth, but also its social prestige. Prince Géza brilliantly perceived this process and turned it to the advantage of the country. A network of what we today call servicing villages had by then evolved around the centres of power. In order to steer his people onto the 'path leading to Europe' the old élite, clinging to the old ways, had to be removed. A rudimentary knowledge of Christianity definitely eased the activity of missionaries. In other words, the Hungarian feudal state did not evolve under some 'external' influence, but as the culmination of an internal development.This exhibition provides a full and detailed picture of this period. Almost all of the Hungarian museums, as well as Slovakian and Polish ones, have contributed material over four thousand objects are exhibited in the showcases.The exhibition presents the most outstanding finds from this period: the superb silver and gold ornaments of the nobles ' costume and horse harness, their splendid weapons, as well as the commoners' less dazzling relics: the tools and implements of everyday life.These finds evoke the art of the Conquest period and are a fitting tribute to the imagination and craftsmanship of the skilled craftsmen. They evoke mythical and magical motifs, the rich stock of ornamental designs and the beliefs that shaped the world of the Conquest period.