ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLECTION

The archaeological collection of the János Tornyai Museum today boasts nearly 140,000 pieces. This number is constantly and rapidly increasing thanks to the large-surface excavation areas. The archeological department was established in 1930 and headed by János Banner. The collection was based on the store of antiques of the Gábor Bethlen Reformed Grammar School, expanding since 1858. In early times the collection was mostly enriched by the excavations conducted by Professor of Archaeology János Banner between 1929 and 1945. He led a series of excavations resulting in the largest Neolithic collection of the region and located in the János Tornyai Museum. The collection of archaeological relics covers almost all eras between the Neolithic and the Turkish rule. However, the largest number of artifacts up to date are the prehistoric ones, especially the Neolithic relics.

1949 was an outstanding year in the history of the collection: József Korek designed the first permanent archaeological exhibition, mainly based on the prehistoric finds excavated by János Banner.

The next significant moment came in 1962, when the county museum organization was founded to which János Tornyai Museum belonged until 2006. During this period a number of objects and artifacts were transferred to Szeged, including most of the numismatic relics, as the museum had no qualified numismatic specialist. In 1963, a 1438 piece set of Byzantine gold solidus (coins) from the Hun era was discovered at Hódmezővásárhely-Szikáncs, and then delivered to the National Museum, but five pieces of II. Theodosius’ coins remained in the possession of the local archaeological collection.

This collection was enriched by finds from the Migration Period excavated at Székkutas-Kápolnadűlő by Katalin B. Nagy, between 1965 and 1986.

The most important Neolithic settlement-excavation of the second half of the 20th century was conducted by an archaeologist of Ferenc Móra Museum, Ferenc Horváth, at Hódmezővásárhely-Gorzsa Cukormajor. This settlement from the second half of the 5th millenium BC, is still the most thoroughly explored South Plains “tell” settlement of that era.