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
FOREWORD On our present and future, which started in ancient times When I was a child, I failed to understand the duality between stories I was told by my parents, which I read in novels, legends and traditions, on the one hand, and the history taught at school on the other, which either denied most of the stories I was told or read, or explained them from a different perspective. In the years gone by I have discovered many contradictions and deficiencies which could not be resolved by this duality. Thinking about the origins of my family, which I can trace back 500 years, I found it strange that the Árpád dynasty, one of Europe’s most significant, most gifted and most powerful dynasties, did not know its origins, roots and ancestors, or was ill-informed. For 800 years, nobody challenged the dynasty descending from Attila and the Scythian, Hun origin of the Hungarian people, the Magyars. Neither did I understand why, in a Christian world, the Dynasty of Holy Kings refers to a pagan ancestor, unless this pagan ancestor gave something special to his people or the peoples under his rule, possibly to Europe or even mankind. I did not receive any adequate explanation about why Attila was called “malleus orbis ”, Hammer of the World, and “flagellum Dei”, Scourge of God. I also entertained the idea that the songs of bards and word of mouth might not have been the only way for the kings from the Árpád dynasty to learn the 7
