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)

Editors’ preface

EDITORS’ PREFACE

In this book, we provide a detailed description of the joint work conducted between 2012 and 2017, with the goal of genetically identifying the Kings of the Árpád

Dynasty.

The primary purpose of our research was to identify the persons whose skeletons were originally buried at the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Székesfehérvár

and

are currently entombed in the crypt of the Matthias Church in Budapest. The end result was the identification of a skeleton of a previously unidentified king from the Árpád Dynasty,

which in turn led us to investigate the origins of the Árpáds. The

task we undertook - like all research, generally speaking - was not straightforward; we ran into many obstacles and setbacks, and had to start over on several occasions.

We had to be persistent, with uncompromising belief that our objectives were achievable. We had to endure systematic criticism and disagreements, and accept constructive remarks. We expected that there would be criticisms and attacks, which is why we had decided to involve in our investigations a foreign institution whose competence is beyond any doubt: the department of Historical Anthropology and Human Ecology of the Johann-Friedrich- Blumenbach Institute for Zoology and Anthropology (University of Göttingen,

Germany);

their results often paved the way for us. Chief among the criticisms was the view that the genetic analysis 21