Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)
Tartalom
DISCOVERIES IN THE CRYPT OF THE DOMINICAN CHURCH - THE "MUMMIES OF VÁC" 135 About half of the corpses were dressed in garments made for the laying out. These were long, plain frocks hardly tailored and tied at the back. An extraordinary variety of the objects of the practice of Roman Catholic religion - rosaries, crucifixes, scapular, medals, mascots, and icons - belonged to the deceased. Among them there are some special items regarding their material, ornaments and patterns, and the region that their origins covered was really extended. Many of them had come from the Holy Land or some west European places of pilgrimage (Mariazell, Loreto). The clothes and the objects buried with the deceased provide information about the everyday life of the 18th century. Several variants of male and female attire have survived, ranging from footwear to headwear; even their original patterns and colours are mostly visible. The majority of the objects that were moved from the crypt to the museum had been the accessories of ordinary life that did not survive anywhere else. The comb put into the coffin, or the carpenter's pencil, which had been left there by chance, and all the other articles that had been placed into the coffins for various reasons bring that ancient age closer to us. Some of the people buried into the crypt of the Dominican Church had been born during the Ottoman occupation. Many of them were not even of Hungarian origin, they or their ancestors had come from some faraway places, but they died in Vác as Roman Catholics. After the Muslim era the town was repopulated, so they were the new inhabitants of Vác, who - having arrived in the 17-18th centuries - formed the town's new social structure. It was being formed by the merging of the cultures of the Hungarian, German, Czech, Moravian, Slavic and all kinds of other people at the time of the crypt in use. The latest archival sources (wills, property inventories, correspondence) based on the studies of available data will draw a more precise picture of the age for the researchers. It is an unparalleled opportunity for historical anthropologists that the corpses are available in a public collection: the organs of the mummies are intact and examinable, they are desiccated. Their names, ages, sometimes origins, jobs, social status, family relationships are all known. No chance of éwtT .> ok ' r.-S~ ?■ 7j fa,McjSC.L*-y*lUr ...--------^ M SM Statement about György Csonka's funeral costs (1756) studies like that has ever been offered to any anthropologists in the world, which explains the extraordinary international interest. In each case, the studies of the mummies try to find out about the cause of the death, they follow up the hereditary diseases within the family, and take into account the harm done by certain jobs. They collect information about the frequency of some particular diseases, the appearance of new ones, and the secrets of the resistance of the constitutions that had survived some illnesses. At a successful exhibition in 2006 the Hungarian Museum of Natural Science displayed their methods used in the examination of the mummies of Vác and their results so far. The Public Foundation for the Museum of Vác set up an exhibition with municipal support in one of the medieval cellars of the Main Square in the summer of 1998. “Memento mod" is different from the sight of the well-known mummy cemeteries (Brno, Palermo). The latter ones are original burial places opened for the public, where mainly monks were buried, so typically it is only the deceased that we can see, without any accessories. However, the crypt in Vác was used by townsfolk: men and women of different ages, origins and social status. Besides the burial customs of the age the exhibition displays a colourful collection of objects depicting these people's lifestyles, all accompanied by explanations and interpretations.
