Folia archeologica 44.

Kovács S. Tibor: Török hatás a magyar fegyvereken a 15-17. században

FOLIA ARCHAEOLOGICA XLIV. 1995. BUDAPEST 243 ARCHAEOLOGICAL GIS IN THE HUNGARIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM Gábor RF:ZI KATÓ The informatical 'revolution' of the past few years brought about, similar to other sciences, significant changes in the research and analytical methods of archaeology as well. Disciplines formerly considered auxiliary methods infiltrated archaeology not only by the results brought by them but also their special research strategies and models. Surpassing interdisciplinary reseach, the individual branches became practically independent and contributed with their specific tool kit to potentials of archaeological research in general. At the same time, all these new tools carried their inherent problems of methodology. Hungarian archaeology as such can be still regarded as belonging to humanities (arts) due to its traditional roots, argumentation and education system. Archaeologists, however, utilise in our days, apart from the traditional approach more than a dozen different independent branches of science. All these mean that the huge amount of data generated cannot be analysed by traditional methods alone. The new methods used in uncovering hidden structures enlarge and at the same time change our methodology. Archaeology, similar to other branches of science, is trying to find new methods, new tools for these problems. One of the main directions of this research is the study of geographical information systems (GIS)

1, making ample use of modern information technology. It is not by chance iliat GIS applications became 'independent' among the first ones within the scientific methods used in archaeology. Archaeology has always very easily adopted geographical argumentation, e.g. in archaeological distribution studies.

2 The aim of ibis short review in Folia Archaeologica is to give an overall image on GIS developments at the Archaeological Department of the Hungarian National Museum. ' The style and form of presentation may differ from the noble traditions of this periodical, but the overall aims are similar. 1 Geographical Information System (GIS) - a general accronym used in computer science for spatial information systems. 2 In a join! project launched together with the Archaeological Department of the Eötvös Loránd University and the Archaeological Institute of the HAS in 1986, supported by the National Science Foundation (OTKA) the Hungarian National Museum was among the first to initiate archaeologicalinformatical studies. The primary field of the museum was database development, while our partners started to develop other fields, e.g., the Archaeological Institute as the centre of the national archaeological topographical project was mainly concerned with the spatial aspect. 1 By a four year project of OTKA ( 1992-1995).