Arrabona - Múzeumi közlemények 7. (Győr, 1965)

Uzsoki A.: The history of Archaeological Collection and research in the city and region of Győr

the museum. The valuable material of the collection figured in several exhibitions both at home and abroad, e. g. in Paris in 1900. Börzsönyi separated the natural history collection from the museum, embracing henceforth the systematically arranged collections of archaeology, numismatics and local history. During World War I a large quantity of duplicate numismatic material was handed over for military purposes, thus the collection decreased to 31.417 objects in 1916. After a long illness Börzsönyi died in 1920, leaving the museum without an expert keeper for years. 4. The Activity of Elemér Lovas in Rearrangement and Research; the Benedictine „Flóris Romer" Museum 1922—1949. Elemér Lovas became a professor of the grammarschool in 1922, he was appointed to be keeper of the museum in the same year. He began to arrange and to develop the collection, stagnant in the preceding years. The arrangement was done under the guidance of Budapest experts, at the same time the itemizing was begun, since the collection lacked an inventory as far. With an incredible industry he managed to elaborate the register of archaeological sites and finds of the Győr region; lacking adequate support, this fundamental source of archaeological research has remained unpublished. First of all, Lovas endeavoured to make the collection, called the Benedictine „Flóris Römer" Museum in his day, entirely public. Twice he travelled to Italy, in part to study the museums of that country and to prepare the plan for a new museum building. However, his endeavours were neither encouraged nor supported materially by the city leadership. After his failure in this field, he turned to planned uncovering and excavated several Roman sites mainly in the city territory. His thorough papers and studies were published in the periodical „Győri Szemle" in the first place. At the beginning of the 1940-s his deteriorating health made his transfer to the Pannonhalma Arch-Abbey necessary; he busied himself with the arrangement of the archaeological collection of the monastery until his death. After Lovas' departure the development of the Győr Museum came to an end; it has been nationalized in 1949. 6. The Győr Municipal Museum and its Union with the „Flóris Rómer" Museum In 1938 the city established a collection of municipal history and entrusted it to Ferenc Jenei. As the attempts at the unification of this collection and the „Flóris Römer" Museum failed, the former was developped to be a Municipal Museum in 1943. In order to enlarge the collection of municipal history, the Hungarian National Museum executed several excavations, uncovering graves and finds from the Age of the Migrations and the Árpádian Period at Győr, others from Prehistory and the Age of the Conquest at Koroncó. Several exhibitions of the fine arts were opened in the museum too, located in the upper storey of the cultural centre. By 1943 the city authorities published the history of Győr to the end of the Bronze Age, edited by Elemér Lovas, and the municipal history in the Age of the Migrations, written by Sándor Gallus, Sándor Mithay and Nándor Fettich. In the winter of 1945 the Germans dragged the most valuable material of the collection to Austria; the paintings have been restored to us as late as in the autumn of 1963. After 1945 Béla Szőke was appointed to the director's post, with the task of reorganizing the pillaged museum. The collection, embracing hardly 1500 objects, did not show sufficient vitality; the prospect of a new development has been opened up by its union with the „Flóris Rómer" Museum, a consequence of the nationalization of both institutions. 7. The „János Xántus" Museum, Győr, 1950—1963. The museum, emerging from the unification of both collections in 1949, has been named after János Xántus, the Hungarian world traveller, having studied at Győr, in 1951. It was allotted a final home in the baroque palace of the Pannonhalma arch-abbots in old days, on Széchenyi Square. The state financed the arrangement of the collection, the preparations of the first standing exhibition and the 95