Department of Archaeology

The Old Stone Age, New Stone Age, Copper Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age finds that make up part of the Prehistoric Collection cover an enormous period. It stretches all the way from the appearance of the New Stone Age and food production in the Carpathian Basin to the beginnings of the Roman period in the same region (late 1st century BCE).

The Collection contains more than 100,000 individual artefacts from the period as a whole, including approximately 1000 gold artefacts. It is, therefore, the richest store of relics left behind by the Huns and Avars (peoples who were of Asian origin) and by the Gepids and Lombards (peoples who were of Germanic origin). Besides individual artworks of outstanding significance and beauty that indicate the wealth of ruling princes (e.g. a Hunnish diadem found at Csorna, a Hunnish cauldron found at Törtel, gold artefacts from the Gepid royal treasury found at Szilágysomló, and grave goods of an Avar ruling prince that were found at Bócsa), most of the artefacts in the Collection consist of grave goods from larger and smaller cemeteries of the ordinary people, along with remains from settlements that testify to everyday lives at this time.