Miklós Kásler - Zoltán Szentirmay (szerk.): Identifying the Árpád Dynasty Skeletons Interred in the Matthias Church. Applying data from historical, archaeological, anthropological, radiological, morphological, radiocarbon dating and genetic research (Budapest, 2021)

Foreword

standardising archaeogenetic research on the origins and geographic location of the Hungarian people and finding its place in the chronology.

Another reason for establishing the Institute for Hungarian Studies was to coordinate work in the fields of related sciences. Within just one and a half years, it became possible to analyse the skeletons of all Hungarian kings buried in Székesfehérvár

and

extend our classical philology research to include sources. Finding sources in Armenian monasteries, Mongolian and Chinese written sources as well as critical revisions of the translations of Arab, Latin and Greek sources are all on the agenda, together with extending archaeological excavations in Hungary and in areas where the ancestors of the Árpád

dynasty and the population around them lived in the past 4500 years.

It seemed obvious to me, and this is why we completed the examination of King Béla

III,

that the dynasty was a reference point, which the population followed and adjusted to in various fields of their everyday activities. Another task for the Institute for Hungarian Studies is to interpret and monitor the stability and changes in the history of ideas in the course of Hungarian history. A separate priority area is analysing early Christianity in Hungary, the Byzantine and Roman impact, and Hungarian traditions.

Almost all researchers working at the Institute for Hungarian Studies hold scientific degrees. They are required to work without preconceptions, guided strictly by scientific principles, and to publish their findings in a language spoken by academicians and ordinary people alike, in Hungarian and in world languages. During their migration, Hungarians clearly encountered Finno-Ugric peoples, but they also met Turkic peoples. However, the most recent research 18