Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 53. (Budapest 1961)

Nemeskéri, J.: Fifteen years of the Anthropological Department of the Hungarian Natural History Museum (1945-1960)

work, but the difficulties, and especially the subsequent events of those years, were unsuitable to development. L. Bartucz's systematical work began in 1921, when he was entrusted with the leadership of the Anthropological Laboratory of the Ethnographical Department of the Hungarian National Museum. In a short time, he reorganized the Laboratory as an Anthropological Collection in the Ethnographical Museum, and endeavoured to start methodical research work, as far as the all too straitened finances permitted it. L. Bartucz commenced his work with a view to the whole of physical anthropology, evolving, as a result of his activities for two decades, J. Jankó 's heritage as a collection significant from also an European point of view. In 1941, the Anthropological Collection consisted of 4.000 items, and, more significant than the quantitative value, the collection housed about 90 percent archeologically authentic anthropological material, even at that time. In the course of his methodical collecting work, L. Bartucz began the systematical publication concerning the population of the Avar period in Hungary, so that the foundations in this regard were lain by him. In his later syntheses, he gave a survey, on the basis of his studies on the finds of the collection, of every archeological period, from the paleolithic to the late Hungarian Middle Ages. He also engaged himself with great zest in ethnic anthropology, conducting valuable investigations in several parts of the country. Subsequently to L. Bartucz's appointment to the Anthropological chair of the University of Sciences in Szeged in 1941, it was the present author who was entrusted with the management of the Anthropological Collection. Concurrently with this change in personnel, there was also an alteration in organization, insofar as the Anthropological Collection was transferred to the Archeological Department of the Museum of History, in the main building of the Hungarian National Museum. In the conditions as given at that time, this structural change was all to the advantage of anthropological investigations, since a direct connexion with archeologists opened entirely new ways for a closer cooperation. Unfortunately, all collecting and evaluating scientific work were soon made extremely difficult, due to the events of World War II. Taking into consideration the possible destruction of the materials of the collection, we took a complete anthropological inventory of the skeletal finds, — and this was all that constituted research work in the given conditions. In December 1944 and January 1945, during the liberation of Budapest, the building of the Hungarian National Museum suffered numerous raids and was heavily damaged by subsequent fires. Due to the ravages of war, a considerable portion of the Anthropological Collection was annihilated, — scattered about as so much debris in the burnt-out, windowless rooms. B) The establishing of the Anthropological Department and the substantial chronological and personnel data of its development. On the 8th June 1945, by the resolution of the Council of the Hungarian National Museum, and its endorsement by the (then) Ministry of Religion and Education, the Anthropological Collection gained an independent status, as the fifth Department of the Hungarian Natural History Museum (Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Paleontology, and Anthropology). Subsequently to its reorganization, the Anthropological Department was housed in moderate circumstances in the building of the Zoological Department (Budapest, VIII. Baross u. 13.). On the first floor of the building, two large rooms served for the arrangement of the skull collection, while the rest of the skeletal finds were stored in various basement rooms. Aside of the collection-rooms, there was only a small chamber to afford the installing of a laboratory, necessary for anthropological and biological researches. Until 1956, the Anthropological Department remained in the Zoological House, when, owing to the conflagration in 1956, it had to be moved urgently. As a consequence of the hostilities, the collection and the laboratory suffered heavy losses. At the end of 1956, the Collection was temporarily housed in the rooms of the Museum of Recent History (V. József nádor tér 2. ). As related to the earlier situation, the arrangement of the collection and the possibilities of research work were far ameliorated (12 rooms).