Arrabona - Múzeumi közlemények 11. (Győr, 1969)

Uzsoki A.: The archaeological activity of János Czehs at Győr

Végezetül megemlítjük, hogy e tanulmánnyal Győr reformkori kutatója, Czech János emlékének kívántunk adózni. Több mint 140 éve rakta le a szabadtéri római kori kőtár alapjait a tudományos kutatás számára. Régészeti tevékenységével, történetírói működésével és kiváló közéleti szereplésével az utókor hálás elismerését érdemli. Uzsoki András THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL ACTIVITY OF JÁNOS CZECH AT GYŐR The paper deals with the archaelogical activity of János Czech, the mayor of Győr in the Age of Reform. He was born at Győr in 1798 and died at Pest in 1854. Having finished his studies at the Royal School of Law at Győr, he entered on a public career and made great headway. In 1825 he became member of parliament, in 1831 he was elected mayor, in 1836 he became chief magistrate of his town. Beside his official work ha made also scientific research and, being a renowned historian, became a member of the Hungarian Learned Society in 1832. In 1840 he migrated to Pest and became director of the Treasury Archives later in te same city. At Győr his research was devoted to historical subjects in the first place, but he did much service to archaeology and numismatics as well. As the demolition of the walls of Győr castle was begun in 1820 and the moat was filled up in 1831, he took notes of the archaeological finds uncovered there and saved their large majority. His papers on archaeology have been published in the issues of the Archiv für Geschichte, Statistik, Literatur und Kunst (Wien, Hormayr) and in the Bulletin of the Hungarian Learned Society. The present study utilizes the Czech Bequest in the ManuscriptDepartment of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, further it enlarges and partly corrects the hitherto available data, furnishing scientifically useful data for archaeological topography. The archaeological activity of Czech was restricted to the Roman period, but he made a number of valuable observations on this subject. His work helps us in comleting the topographical outlines of the City. He noted that five Roman graves have been uncovered in the one-time animal market place in the first third of the nineteenth century. He made exact notes on the cirumstances of uncovering, he described the finds, he even dated the graves on the basis of the coins. Thase graves, dated to the second half of the third century, belonged to the Late Roman cemetery extending to the area of the railway station. The same animal market place yielded also relics of canalization and of Roman buildings. Czech informs us also on the discovery of two sarcophagi in today's F. Liszt Street. In his garden, called „Fasanengarten" according to Mommsen in literature, he founded a Roman lapidarium in 1827. There he collected these inscribed and embossed stones which were placed into walls in the city or uncovered during earthworks. The site of the garden is the area bordered by S. Lukács Street, BajcsyZsilinszky Street and Batthyány Square in aur day. As Czech gave no description of the open-ain lapidarium, we do not know its full inventory, except that beside stone relics he gathered also Roman bricks (tegulae) there. Mommsen presents 9 inscribed stones from the Fasanengarten; the paper deals with the history of research and the literature regarding them. The completed and partly corrected data may be used by those who prepare the new edition of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum in an international research team. The stone relics of the Fasanengarten are the following: the stele of the mounted archer Acrabanis (CIL III. 4367), the tombstone of Ulp. Eptatralis (CIL III. 4378), a fragment of an inscribed stone tablet (CIL III. 4374), the votive stone tablet of Aur. LatinianuS (CIL III. 4365), an inscribed tombstone, fragmentary (CIL III. 4381), the stele of Aur. Marcus (CIL III. 4370), the stele of Crispus Mac

... (CIL III. 4373) and that of Statoria (CIL III. 4386). Only the first three fo these are preserved in the Győr Museum, the fate of the rest in unknown since Mommsen's time. A special treatment is devoted to the fragment of a tombstone here, raised by C. Salvius Julius to his wife, as the legend runs. The stone was observed and sketched by Czech in 1827 at the first time, then it was published by Mommsen (CIL III. 4385). The author published the authentic legend and the first exact drawing of the stele. 139