Technikatörténeti szemle 7. (1973-74)

MŰSZAKI SZAKMÚZEUMOK - Pál Vajda: Industrial Museums in Hungary (in English)

Hungarian Oil Industry Museum: Surface Equipment of a deep-well pump the square in front of the mine an ancient locomotive and unsmelted magmatic ore blocks recall the bygone days. The shafts cut in the hillside demonstrate the various ways of mining. Museums devoted to industry are somewhat different in concept from art museums. An industrial museum does not aim at setting up collections, but to promote the development of a branch of industry, science, research, education. In other words, the industrial museum seeks to communicate or even instruct on a specific and broad level. The Hungarian Oil Industry Museum was erected at Zalaegerszeg, the birthplace of hydrocarbon mining in Hungary. The museum holds a valuable collection of the instruments, equipment and apparatus used throughout the history of petroleum industry. It houses a fascinating array of relics and documents relating to the development of oil prospecting, mining and processing, and the life and working conditions of oil miners. The principal aim of founding the museum had been to protect the technical relics, but the visitors will find there a series of exhibits which provide an insight also into the natural formation of hydrocarbons. A permanent exhibition, for instance, illustrates the historical periods of technological and industrial development. The material is divided in three large groups. Over an area outdoors, awell drilling and oil production equipment has been erected in its original layout, including the first gas fuelled rotary drilling rig