Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 96. (Budapest 2004)

Papp, G.: A critical review of 16–17th century reports on meteorite falls in and around the Carpathian Basin

the year 1560. The description given by ISTVÁNFFY (1622: 394) clearly indicates a meteorite fall: Ceciderunt etiain ad Miscolcium oppidum, quinque praegrandes instar humani capitis lapides, luteo & ferrugineo colore, gravi pondere, sulphureoque odore, quum darum coelum subito fulgure, & tonitribus, terribilique aeris commotione repente conturbatum fuisset, iis mox puncto temporis quiescentibus. Quorum unum in arce Diosgioriana, hodieque asservatur, caeteris Sigismundus Balassius ad Ferdinandum missit. At the town of Miskolc five large stones, equal to a human head in size, of yellowish and brownish colour and sulphurous smell, fell, after sudden disturbance of the clear sky by terrible lightning, thunder and motion of air, which then died away in a twinkle. One of them is still kept in the Diósgyőr castle, the others were sent by Zsigmond Balassa to [King] Ferdinand. The day of the fall is given by MÁRTON SZENT-IVÁNYI (1633-1705), Jesuit Professor of the Nagyszombat University, in a compilation of Hungarian memorabilia (SZENT-IvÁNYI 1699: 30): [1560] Quinque ingentes lapides 10. Maji de Coelo ceciderunt in Oppido Mosocz. [1560] On May 10, five huge stones fell from the sky at the town of Mosóc. The date of year and the number of stones correspond to the data of ISTVÁNFFY, proving that the note refers to the Miskolc fall, although the locality was confused with Mosóc (now Mosovce, Slovakia). A third subsequent brief reference is included in an early 18th century manuscript chronicle of the Lutheran church in Szepes (Zips, Spis) county (Acta diversa circa Ecclesiam scepusiensem sedulo conquisita, published by PEKÁR 1904: 53), the fall is dated to 1559 in this note: In diesem Jahr [1559] sind in Miskoltz 5 Steine aus der Luft gefallen wie Menschen Köpfe gross. CHLADNI (1819) made unsuccessful inquiries after the stones in Diósgyőr and in the imperial collections in Vienna. According to FlTZINGER (1856: 449) the stones had already been missing from the Treasury (Schatzkammer) in the late 1770s when the other meteorites (Hrascina and Tábor) were transferred from there to the natural history collection of the Court. The fate of the Miskolc meteorite specimens in Vienna is untraceable. They haven't been mentioned in the detailed description of the Schatzkammer given by BROWNE (1677) or other travel itineraries of the 17th and 18th c. (SABINE HAAG, pers. commun.). The earliest available inventory of the Schatzkammer (from 1750; ZlMERMAN 1889) hasn't listed them either. A search after a contemporary document on the sending of the meteorites to Vienna among the archival materials published in the volumes of the Jahrbuch der