Gyöngyössy Márton (szerk.): Perspectives on the Past. Major Excavations in County Pest (Szentendre, 2008)
Introduction The aim of this volume is to provide an illustrated overview of the major excavations conducted over the past twenty years to the broader public and to the archaeological community. The series of large-scale salvage excavations preceding major construction projects in County Pest began at the turn of the 1980s/1990s, with the investigation of two Avar cemeteries at Budakalász and Biatorbágy. The construction of the link road between the M5 Motorway and Road 4, and the Vác bypass of Road 2 marked the first phase of the motorway construction projects. The field techniques and the overall procedure of archaeological investigations underwent major changes both in County Pest and in other regions of Hungary, where motorway constructions were begun. It was possible to investigate extensive areas, whose findings often called for a re-assessment of earlier interpretations of a particular archaeological period. Enormous quantities of finds were brought to light, whose conservation and restoration is in many cases still underway. The construction of the eastern and northern section of the MO Ring Road, the Abony bypass of Road 4 and the Érd section of the M6 Motorway provided a fresh impetus to research. The finds and findings of these recent, large-scale excavations conducted over extensive areas will be fully published in separate volumes. Presented here are no more than brief preliminary reports. In addition to the motorways, a host of new petrol stations, warehouses, industrial and logistic parks, supermarkets and apartment buildings have been built. Large-scale development and construction projects have called for several seasons of salvage excavations in the broader area of Biatorbágy, Budaörs, Budakalász, Páty, Solymár, Gödöllő, Nagykörös, Szigetszentmiklós and elsewhere. The investigation of the medieval castle and town in Vác and the excavation of the Roman military fort at Szentendre too were continued with the generous financial support of the local councils. The findings of these excavations are also presented here, together with a selection of their finds and the photos and drawing made during the excavations. We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the many individuals and organisations, without whom the present volume could hardly have been written. Firstly, thanks are due to my archaeologist colleagues working in the field and the field technicians and drawers helping their work. We are greatly indebted to the conservators, who restored the excavated finds to their former beauty, to the photographers, who recorded the various finds, and, not least, to our colleagues in various museums for providing the necessary background for presenting the excavations and displaying the finds. Mention must certainly be made of our former, retired colleagues, whose untiring work was inseparable from the museum’s activities. Last, but not least, we wish to express our appreciation to the investors and developers for their generous financial support and, perhaps even more importantly, for their patience, which enabled the excavations described here. We are grateful to them all. It is our hope that this volume will contribute to a better understanding of the manifold aspects of the work performed by archaeologists in the field and in the museums, and make the fruits of their labour better known. • • Katalin Ottományi Directorate of the County Pest Museums
