The Institute of Archaeological Sciences at ELTE was established in 1990 as the successor to the Department of Archaeology. Its first director was István Bóna, followed by Miklós Szabó in 1995, then Pál Raczky in 2005, and László Borhy between 2014 and 2018. Since 2018, the director of the Institute has been Tivadar Vida. The Institute consists of four departments (Department of Prehistory and Near Eastern Archaeology, Department of Classical and Roman Archaeology, Department of Early Medieval and Historical Archaeology, Department of Archaeometry, Archaeological heritage and Methodology), and it includes a shared library, as well as independent units such as laboratories and archaeological collections.

Since 1999, the work of the Institute has also been supported by the MTA–ELTE Interdisciplinary Archaeological Research Group.

The leadership of the institute

Dr Tivadar Vida, university professor, director of the institute

Dr Dávid Bartus, habilitated associate professor, deputy director of the institute

History

The beginnings

The beginnings of archaeological education in Budapest go back to the Jesuit University of Nagyszombat, founded by Péter Pázmány in 1635. Although there are no direct sources on the teaching of antiquities, it likely had a place among the historical studies. This is indicated by the fact that the Faculty of Arts of the university collected antiquities, primarily coins, in line with the spirit of the age. The coin cabinets made in Nagyszombat still house the Institute’s significant coin collection, parts of which date from this period.

In 1773, Maria Theresa dissolved the Jesuit order and endowed the university with independent assets. In her Ratio Educationis issued in 1777, alongside numerous other educational reforms, she also established the structure of university education. The decree, among the auxiliary sciences of history, named numismatics as the first archaeological subject, established an independent Chair of Numismatics, and mandated that a specimen of every coin minted in the hereditary provinces be added to enrich the university collection. Reference was also made to the creation of a university archaeological collection to support teaching.

When the university was relocated to Buda in the same year, the department’s name became the Department of Numismatics and Antiquities. Its first professor was István Schönvisner, who laid the foundations of provincial Roman archaeology in Hungary, followed in 1794 by Péter Katančić. This period was marked by the dominance of classical archaeological studies and research. At the university, which was moved to Pest in 1784, the next key figure in archaeological teaching was József Weszerle, appointed in 1815, who became the founder of modern Hungarian numismatics. He was the first to organize and catalogue the department’s coin collection—comprising thousands of coins, including not only ancient coins but also Hungarian, Transylvanian, and European currency.

In 1845, when university instruction switched to the Hungarian language, the study of antiquities entered a crisis due to the lack of qualified specialists. A revival came in 1849, when Ferenc Kiss was appointed acting professor. In addition to classical archaeology, he also dealt with prehistory and the Middle Ages, incorporating his research findings into his lectures. The importance of archaeological subjects within the Faculty of Humanities increased significantly when, in 1853, the unified curriculum introduced a requirement for proficiency in classical antiquities as part of Greek and Latin language exams—teaching of which was assigned to the Institute of Numismatics and Antiquities.

The teaching of archaeology in Pest rose to a truly international standard from 1863, when Flóris Rómer began his work at the university as a private lecturer.

He selected the topics of his lectures from a very broad range, including subjects in art history, numismatics, and archaeology. He did not limit himself to material from the Carpathian Basin but also presented the latest findings of European archaeology. He dealt with nearly every period of archaeology: prehistory, antiquity, and the Middle Ages alike. He placed great emphasis on engaging with each topic not only in theory but also by organizing fieldwork.

In 1872, the Department of Art History was established at the Faculty of Humanities in Pest under the leadership of Imre Henszlmann, which took over many of the former responsibilities of the Department of Archaeology. Flóris Rómer was appointed director of the Numismatic and Antiquities Collection of the Hungarian National Museum in 1869. From that point onward, it became common for lecturers of the department to take on roles in public collections.

Alongside certain advantages of this close relationship — as Zoltán Oroszlán pointed out in his work on the history of the department — it had the consequence that professors relied more on museum collections, libraries, and workshops in their scholarly work, while making little effort to develop such resources at the university. The consequences of this are still felt today. While in Western Europe, major institutions for archaeological education also became research centers, in Hungary the two activities became almost completely separated.

The first half of the 20th century

Flóris Rómer was succeeded at the head of the department by other prominent figures of Hungarian archaeology: from 1879 by Károly Torma, then from 1890 by József Hampel. The focus of Károly Torma’s teaching activity was the archaeology of the provinces of Dacia and Pannonia, while József Hampel primarily gave lectures on Greek and Roman art. Despite his significant research achievements in these areas, József Hampel dealt very little with prehistoric, Migration Period, Roman provincial, and medieval topics, and gradually neglected practical training as well. This was no coincidence, as the department fundamentally served the training of teachers, and did not see the education of future archaeologists as its mission.

This situation changed somewhat with the appointment of Bálint Kuzsinszky, an outstanding representative of Pannonian and Dacian provincial archaeology, in 1914. In his professorial work, which lasted until 1930, he placed greater emphasis than his predecessors on the training of future archaeologists.

The period between the two world wars was characterized by the decentralization of archaeological teaching: there were four departments operating simultaneously, each of which taught archaeological subjects either in part or in full, and each was led by an outstanding expert.

Kuzsinszky’s successor was another archaeologist specializing in the Roman period, András Alföldi, under whom the department’s name was changed to the Department of Archaeology of the Hungarian Land. He initiated the Dissertationes Pannonicae series, in which doctoral theses completed at the department were published. In 1938, Ferenc Tompa established the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology, while the teaching of ancient Greek and Roman art was handled by the Department of Art History and Classical Archaeology led by Antal Hekler, and medieval archaeology was taught by the Department of Art History and Christian Archaeology led by Tibor Gerevich.

Under the system of free arts education, students could freely choose among courses, and those who wanted to become archaeologists could now receive a much fuller and more diverse training.

After the Second World War

The post-World War II period was defined by the educational reform of 1949. The training of certified museum professionals was introduced, and for the first time, archaeology degrees could be awarded as one of its branches. Instead of the previous framework that offered students a wide range of choices, a predetermined, fixed curriculum for the archaeology major was created, based on which education continues today with minor or major modifications. It was at this time that the system still in place began, whereby students specialize in two out of four, later five, historical periods.

The scientific life of the archaeological departments, which had held central importance before the war, was extremely adversely affected by the general centralization efforts of politics, as the right of universities to award doctoral degrees was withdrawn, and habilitation was abolished.

With the establishment of the academic institutional network, the already previously fluctuating separation between research and teaching intensified, and the financial resources of universities remained very limited, leaving little opportunity for independent excavation activities.

After the war, extensive personnel changes became necessary: Antal Hekler died in 1940, and his professorial position remained vacant for years; Ferenc Tompa died during the siege of Budapest; András Alföldi emigrated. Zoltán Oroszlán was appointed professor to the Department of Classical Archaeology, which had split off from Art History, and the head of the Prehistoric Department became the outstanding prehistoric archaeologist János Banner, invited from Szeged. The succession of András Alföldi was delayed for a long time, but from 1949 Gyula László already supported teaching.

In 1957, during another educational reform, the requirement for a double major was introduced, meaning that alongside archaeology, students were required to choose a teaching subject. The intention behind this change was that graduates who could not find work as archaeologists could be employed as teachers. However, this remained only an illusion; today it is clear that the number of those who actually pursued teaching careers is negligible. The obvious disadvantage of the new system was that less time was allotted to mastering archaeological subjects than before. In time, it became clear that the advantage of the double major was not so much in providing different job opportunities, but in offering an outlook on related disciplines not taught within archaeology, most often history, thus providing a more unified, complex approach.

In 1967, János Banner and Zoltán Oroszlán retired, and Gyula László took over the leadership of the newly reunited Department of Archaeology. Gyula László sought to synthesize archaeological, historical, linguistic, ethnographic, and anthropological data relating to Hungarian prehistory and the Conquest period, and with this new, complex approach, he made a lasting impact on students beyond his own narrower field of study. His successor, András Mócsy, became an internationally renowned researcher of the archaeology of the Roman provinces.

The formation of the current structure

In 1990, further reforms followed, affecting both the organizational framework and the system of education. The previously unified Department of Archaeology was divided into three parts: the Department of Prehistoric and Early Historical (Archaeological) Studies was established under Professor István Bóna, the Department of Ancient Greek and Roman Archaeology under Professor Miklós Szabó, and the Department of Hungarian Medieval and Early Modern Archaeology under Professor András Kubinyi.

To coordinate the activities of the three departments and to carry out common tasks, the Institute of Archaeological Sciences was established, with István Bóna as its first director.

The organization of the Institute was primarily motivated by the need for the university to conduct independent excavation activities and to create an institutional framework to support this. The educational framework for archaeological training also changed when study units were introduced during the reform. A study unit is a predetermined, coded academic unit that can be completed through various types of courses. The original goal of the change was to liberalize education and make it compatible with other universities, though this was only partially successful. The newly developed study unit list did not fundamentally alter the basic system of training, but it made it possible for students to obtain a degree by completing a single specialization.

Since the establishment of the Institute, the most important changes include the succession of its directors: István Bóna was succeeded by Miklós Szabó, then in 2006 by Pál Raczky, in 2014 by László Borhy, and in 2018 by Tivadar Vida. At the head of the Department of Prehistoric and Early Historical Archaeology, István Bóna was followed by Pál Raczky and then Tivadar Vida. At the Department of Hungarian Medieval and Early Modern Archaeology, András Kubinyi was succeeded first by József Laszlovszky, then by László Bartosiewicz and István Feld. At the Department of Ancient Archaeology, Miklós Szabó’s successors were László Borhy and then Dávid Bartus. The newly established Department of Archaeometry and Archaeological Methodology (now Department of Archaeometry, Archaeological heritage and Methodology) was led by László Bartosiewicz and later by Zoltán Czajlik.

The educational structure has been modified several times since then, first with the introduction of the credit system (2002), then with the launch of the two-tier (Bologna) system in 2006. From 2018, archaeology separated from the history major and became an independent undergraduate program again, which was accompanied by a restructuring of the departmental framework. The newly formed (Department of Prehistory and Near Eastern Archaeology is led by Gábor Kalla, and the Department of Early Medieval and Historical Archaeology is led by Tivadar Vida.