Archaeology Park in Százhalombatta
Apr. 22nd, 2006 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartAs you all know, I usually dislike these obligatory school trips. A coach ride with 60 kids isn't exactly my idea of a good time, professional enthusiasm nothwithstanding.
But today's trip was truly excellent. We visited the Archaeology Park in Százhalombatta, a 1.5 hour bus ride from Budapest. It's truly a marvel, and the only one of this kind in the entire Europe. It's a shame that so few people know about it.
Százhalombatta's name roughly means "a place with 100 burial mounds" - which is the exact truth. More than a hundred Bronze and Iron Age burial grounds have been found here, and barely any have been properly dug out - it's simply too expensive. In any case, they've built a reconstruction of several Bronze and Iron Age houses, with replicas of the tools the people 3000 years ago used for their daily work, like looms and all that. They also reconstructed one of the burial mounds (#105) as much as it was possible, and there's a multimedia show in it about Iron Age burials. It's very neat.
Beyond that, they offer visitors the chance to learn a few simple tasks done in that age. The kids did some leatherwork, pottery without a wheel (it hadn't yet existed in the Iron Age), colouring clothes with stamps, making jewellery out of brass wire and that staff. They have so-called family days, when they even cook meals for the families, unsing only plants and meat the rest of which have been found in the digs, so they are as "authentic" as possible.
I've enjoyed this trip very much. I wish we had more such places.
Links:
General: http://www.szazhalomconf.com/Szazhalombatta.html
SAX Project: http://www.arch.soton.ac.uk/Research/default.asp?ProjectID=17
Some pictures and town guide: http://summerfest.battanet.hu/Summerweb2/e_szhbatta.htm
There are probably better ones, but I suck at googling. Speaking of which, does anyone know really good sites about the Hallstatt culture? I set the people of Rhun into that context in my stories, but I haven't found any detailled information about that culture on the Net.
But today's trip was truly excellent. We visited the Archaeology Park in Százhalombatta, a 1.5 hour bus ride from Budapest. It's truly a marvel, and the only one of this kind in the entire Europe. It's a shame that so few people know about it.
Százhalombatta's name roughly means "a place with 100 burial mounds" - which is the exact truth. More than a hundred Bronze and Iron Age burial grounds have been found here, and barely any have been properly dug out - it's simply too expensive. In any case, they've built a reconstruction of several Bronze and Iron Age houses, with replicas of the tools the people 3000 years ago used for their daily work, like looms and all that. They also reconstructed one of the burial mounds (#105) as much as it was possible, and there's a multimedia show in it about Iron Age burials. It's very neat.
Beyond that, they offer visitors the chance to learn a few simple tasks done in that age. The kids did some leatherwork, pottery without a wheel (it hadn't yet existed in the Iron Age), colouring clothes with stamps, making jewellery out of brass wire and that staff. They have so-called family days, when they even cook meals for the families, unsing only plants and meat the rest of which have been found in the digs, so they are as "authentic" as possible.
I've enjoyed this trip very much. I wish we had more such places.
Links:
General: http://www.szazhalomconf.com/Szazhalombatta.html
SAX Project: http://www.arch.soton.ac.uk/Research/default.asp?ProjectID=17
Some pictures and town guide: http://summerfest.battanet.hu/Summerweb2/e_szhbatta.htm
There are probably better ones, but I suck at googling. Speaking of which, does anyone know really good sites about the Hallstatt culture? I set the people of Rhun into that context in my stories, but I haven't found any detailled information about that culture on the Net.
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Date: 2006-04-25 01:39 pm (UTC)