Savaria - A Vas Megyei Múzeumok értesítője 24/3. (1997) (Szombathely, 1997)

Ilon Gábor: Az archeológus Bándi Gábor

The base of the national and international publication exchange and the growing museum library, i.e. the periodical titled Savaria, the Communications of the Museums in County Vas was published between 1975 and 1983, with his contribution as an editor, during the time he was the departmental manager. In the fallowings, I am going to give fall details his exemplary initiative in connection with county Vas. Besides being a manager, he also had time for launching the aerial archaeology on the topics of the Szent Vid site in Velem, the territory of Savaria and the Iseum district from 1980, as the first county museum organisation in Hungary. That was a remarkable action next to the former Iron Curtain! The preparation of the volume about county Vas of the Archaeological topography of Hungary was not favoured by era, the situation of the county next to the border, and the fact, that he had to concentrate on the permanent exhibition was to be opened in 1982. He set going programmed excavations with the intention of improving the archaeological collection of the museum, which was unproportional and needed completion in many respects. The first significant undertaking was the excavation in Se, began in 1973, with the help of the Archaeological Institution of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. It has won an international rank to our days. The research at the site Velem-Szent Vid was restarted in 1973, and became a programmed excavation from 1974, then soon afterwards a university study excavation. Thank to it, the today generation of archaeologists dealing with the Iron and Bronze period, could studied here. After the heartening results, an international excavation was carried out on the mount between 1988 and 1994, initiated and led by Gábor Bandi and Prof. Miklós Szabó. At the end of the 70s, Bandi dreamt about an Archaeological Park at Szent Vid, in a time, when there was not even half a dozen examples of it in Europe. From his dreams, only two building reconstructions had been realised, already fell into decay. He knew that the past had to and could be made living. Within the scope of the Savaria research, beside the investigation of the Iseum district and archaeological excavations preceding the reconstruction of the second phase of the Járdányi Paulovics István Ruin Garden, the works concentrating on the cemeteries of the colonia also started. From his initiative, as a part of a national program, the research of centre of the comes in Karakó began in 1976-1977. On his motion, the periodical cataloguing, storing and recording of the archaeological collection began in 1973. In 1973-1974, he started the revision of the small collections of the county (such as Jánosháza, Sárvár and Vasvár) and their concentration to Szombathely. He believed in the importance of the relationship of the general public and the museum, and inside it, the archaeology. The classic example of this belief is the construction of the archaeological unit of the Museum in the Ság-hegy in 1977. It was renovated in 1988, and can be still visited. This topic consists of not only the already mentioned experiment of the Archaeological Park and the Hungarian (One million steps in Hungary, the legendary TV series) and foreign (French and Italian) films shot in Szent Vid, but the new permanent exhibition (opened on 1

st of October , 1982), which was established on the bases of his conception and with his help, and can be still visited. The permanent exhibition, which was made in the renovated building of the museum, had a positive long lasting international reputation. He thought the teaching was very important. So, he joined the work of the History Department of the Berzsenyi Dániel Teacher Training College in Szombathely in 1978 and secured the same opportunity to his colleagues as well. He regularly published his works in the annuals of the museums of Pécs, Szeged, Székesfehérvár and Szombathely, in the Archeológiai Értesítő, the Acta Archaeologica and the volumes of national and international conferences. All of the above mentioned progressive events of the archaeology of the county were broken by his unjust removal on 30

th of September in 1985. The events of the year of 1985 in Szombathely possibly played a significant role in his tragic early death. Gábor Ilon