Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis 7. (1969)

Bakó Ferenc: Beszámoló a múzeumi szervezet 1968. évi tudományos és népművelési munkájáról

to the various collections according to museological branches and resulted in their increase, we must make special mention of two research projects. Both Visonta and Pâlots research are complex tasks organized with the co-operation of several specialized branches which were initiated and organized as a programme of several years by the County Museum, as we have reported in more detail in the recent issues of our yearbook. The Visonta research project comprised archeological, historical and ethnographical collecting work. Archeological work was successful through continuous ranging of the area and excavations made at two sites. In the fields called Felsőrét, Mr. Kovács and Mr. Nagy opened up 77 graves of the 10-1 lth centuries and parts of a 10th-century settlement. In the garden of the house at Petőfi utca 13, they excavated with the co-operation of Mr. Szabó 15 graves of a cemetery of the same age. The collection of historical data relating to Visonta was carried on with the methods started in 1967. Commissioned researchers copied data and prepared abstracts on these subjects in the State Archives of Eger and in the National Archives. Writing out the data from the church registers of births, marriages and deaths, and their systematization between 1692 and 1945 was started for the purpose of supporting ethnographical and anthropological research in studying the historical questions of the society of that period. Ethnographical research work proceeded on two lines. One was the collecting of objects for setting up a village museum at Ujvisonta to be built as the successor of the old village. Miss Kapros and Mr. Kecskés compiled 65 objects for this purpose. The other line was an intensive collection of themes to be used in the various chapters of a planned monograph of the village. A working conference held late in the year at Gyöngyös reported on the results of collecting till then, and discussed questions of methodology for continuing research work. During the year the Pâlots research project was still in the stage of preparation. Meetings held at Salgótarján and in Budapest during that year shaped the scientific and organizational framework for these activities and defined fundamental methodological principles. The five Counties of North Hungary that started the research project, the Ethnographic and Linguistic Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Ethnographical Museum, the workers of the ethnographical departments of the Universities of Budapest and Debrecen co-operated in the preparatory work, and a Scientific Council and an Executive Committee were set up for carrying on this work in an organized manner. In order to start collecting work as soon as possible questionaries were drawn up to record data on popular beliefs, on social customs and architectural features of the settlements in this region. With the help of these questionaries a few compilation projects were completed during the year. At the end of the year we started drawing up the general, exploratory questionary which was to be filled in with the cooperation of the communities of some thousand settlements in the surveyed region. The complex nature of the Pâlots project was manifest already in the plan year when archeological and historical research were started. Mr. Szabó started excavation work of a late Avar and 11-13-century cemetery at Előmáj of Gyöngyöspata, and detected the foundation of a small temple of the Arpadian age. Historical research work was started by the staff of the Eger Museum : Mr. Kovács compiled data in the subject field of Pâlots

—Khabar relations, and, assisted by Miss Kapros and Mr. Kecskés, drew up a basic map of the hypothetical Pâlots region, showing the distribution of religions and the differences in social status. In addition to these complex research activities the staff of the County Museum were working successfully in practically every field of the museological branches. These achievements will be presented in the following, broken down to the chapters of natural history, archeology, ethnography, the applied arts, the fine arts, local history and literary history. Natural-historical collecting activities were chiefly carried on in the Mátra Museum of Gyöngyös where the collections, the qualifications of the staff and their spheres of interest are principally in this field. The collections of the Museum were enriched considerably by the 12