Gulyás Katalin – Horváth László – Kaposvári Gyöngyi – Pató Mária szerk.: Nyitott kapuk. Hetvenéves a szolnoki Damjanich János Múzeum (A Damjanich János Múzeum kincsei, 2004)

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SUMMARY LÁSZLÓ SZABÓ - ÉVA GULYÁS: MUSEUM HISTORY The history of the János Damjanich Museum of Szolnok goes back to the 19

tn century, when the increased romantic interest about the past created cultural associations and it is closely interwoven with the history of the local Artists' Colony, which was also started that time. The first illustrious representative of the idea to establish a museum was Viktor Hild, an antiquary, later major county archivist, who initiated the organised collection of the historical memorabilia of the county, and who started to explore the region in excess of archaeological findings systematically. Dr Béla Balogh continued his works, he created a town library by procuring and projected enlarging the Hild collection. The destruction of the war put a period to his works. In the readjustment and recreation of a living collection Gyula Kaposvári played a decisive role. Gyula Kaposvári, Dr László Selmeczi and László Tálas, during their decade long service as museum directors were those who finally formally brought the János Damjanich Museum into existence, creating the physical framework of several successful exhibitions and a scientific workshop by obtaining the building of the defunct Royal Hotel and totally renovating it. Dr Robert Kertész and Dr László Horváth continued their activities. LÁSZLÓ TÁLAS: NEARLY TWO DECADES IN THE LIFE OF A MUSEUM The paper is trying to overview four decades of the history of the museum starting in 1951, in which the author himself played a decisive role. In addition to the main tasks of a museum, that is to say, scientific research and organising exhibitions, this period was characterised by activities and difficulties of creating the physical framework of existence and construction. It took decades for the museum to occupy the building of the defunct Royal Hotel, which was formally assigned as the home of the museum, later on the local synagogue then the ex-Soviet military base, which now serves as a storehouse. This process was accompanied by constant possessory actions, shortage of money and problems due to the very bad physical conditions of the building, but at the same time by successful exhibitions and spectacular programmes as well. Many times exhibitions such as the Gieshaber Collection of Stuttgart, the Batavia Collection containing Rubens and Rembrandt paintings or the Nagybánya paintings were organised in a building which looked as if it was being besieged. At the same time our local material was successfully exhibited in several European countries. It was also the period of enjoyable enrichment of the collection, since despite the financial difficulties next to the fruits of the constant archaeological excavations, the collection increased with valuable art objects, such as some Csontváry paintings and the Mednyánszky collection. What shows the importance of the activities of the decades under review was that Árpád Göncz, the President of the Republic paid several visits to our institution. One of the emphatic elements of the review of the history of the museum is the enumeration of the facts that during this difficult but creative period we could carry out all the work that gives a museum its scientific ranking and importance. MARIETTA CSÁNYI: ARCHAEOLOGY The biggest and fastest growing part of the collection of the Museum of Szolnok is the archaeological collection. Its foundation was the collection gathered together by Viktor Hild, but it wasn't until the 1960's that systematic scientifically founded excavations were commenced throughout the county enriching the collection of the János Damjanich Museum. Next to the internationally famous Bronze Age sites in Tószeg-Laposhalom and Turkeve-Terehalom, a series of important Stone Age and Middle Age sites have been unearthed during recent decades in the area. Earthworks due to frequent road and other constructions totally engage the archaeological capacity of the museum during the excavation season providing an enormous 141