The Collection of Roman Stone Carvings is one of the earliest in the history of the Hungarian National Museum. The collection, which has been growing steadily since 1804, contains nearly 2,500 pieces, making it one of the world's most important Roman lapidaria. Almost every type of carved and inscribed stone legacy of the period is found here, including building slabs, altars, statue bases, tombstones, tomb components, sarcophagi, milestones, circular sculptures, reliefs and carved building components from the 1st to 4th centuries AD. Carvings come mainly from Pannonia, i.e. the Transdanubian region, but more widely from the Carpathian Basin, and are mostly made of limestone, less often of marble or sandstone, and include a number of subtypes, among which the variety of inscribed objects is outstanding. The inscriptions not only document buildings, travel dates, various religious acts and statues, but also depict personal destinies and careers through the inscriptions on gravestones, with shorter texts and even longer ones in verse.
Contact: Nagyernyei Szabó Ádám (DSc), szabo.adam@hnm.hu
Online Catalogue: Ubi Erat Lupa website (Lupa.at) https://lupa.at/queries/571172023
Characteristics of stone carvings
Some of the stone monuments have survived intact, while others bear traces of later periods, including re-carving and cutting into building material. The stone carvings represent outstanding and unique sources from both a historical and an art historical point of view. The inscriptions are revealing as to the history of the Roman Empire, including that of Pannonia, and provide valuable sources for social, religious, military, legal and linguistic history, etc. The carvings also identify period styles, stone carving workshops and sometimes individual artists, even if not by name.
Composition of the collection
In the collection of Roman stone carvings, larger groups are represented by the stone monuments of Aquincum (Budapest, III. district), Intercisa (Dunaújváros), Brigetio (Komárom-Ószőny), Mogionibus (Környe) and Iovia (Alsóhetény). A considerable number of stone carvings come from almost all sites in the Transdanubian region, but the so-called Barbaricum is represented, too (with objects brought from Transdanubia to east of the river Danube). Among the most important contributors to the collection are Count Cardinal Kristóf Migazzi, Bishop of Vác and Archbishop of Vienna, through his legacy, and Flóris Rómer through his collecting activity, and Ede Mahler, István Paulovics, László Barkóczi, Sándor Soproni, Endre Tóth and Ádám Szabó through the stone monuments brought in as a result of excavations, but also the names of numerous donors are preserved in the volumes of the register, starting with Archduke Joseph, Palatine of Hungary.
The Lapidary
Of the stone monuments, 205 can be seen and studied in the Lapidarium, the main building of the Hungarian National Museum. The Lapidarium opened in the autumn of 1998, designed and directed by Mihály Nagy, head museologist and then director of the Roman Collection, who also wrote a guide to the Lapidarium, published in Hungarian in 2007 and in English in 2012. The Lapidarium presents the history of Pannonia through the province's most outstanding carved and inscribed stone objects, as well as the periods of the province's stone carving and epigraphy. It is not only an exhibition, but also a classroom experience. The other objects of the Lapidary are displayed and housed partly on the walls of the ground floor corridors of the main building, partly on the walls of the basement, in the south courtyard and in an external storage room. A special object is the column and its capital was donated to the museum not by the Italian head of government but by the governor of the city of Rome in the late 1920s. The column, which can be seen in the Museum Garden by the north gate, was originally part of the row of columns of the Temple of Peace (Templum Pacis Augustae) built by the Emperor Vespasian in the city of Rome, and is still considered by tradition, based on a newspaper error at the time of its donation, to be a column of the Forum Romanum.
The column was originally part of the columns of the Temple of Peace (Templum Pacis Augustae) built by the Emperor Vespasian in the city of Rome.
Sculpture of a spring nymph from an unknown site in northeastern Pannonia.
Tomb stele of two families from Albertirsa, originally from Óbuda or Dunapentele, erected in two periods.
Altar placed over the gravestone of a legion soldier from Petronell.
A large sculpture base from Óbuda, carved on four sides, also serving as an altar.
Altar erected to Virtus and Honos, from Pécs.
A votive altar to Silvanus Silvestris with a depiction of the deity from Óbuda.
The relief depicting the battle of Bellerophon and Khimaira, from Dunapentele.
A sign depicting the construction of bridges, from Dunapentele.
Milestone from Szentendre with inscription field on the outside.
Inscribed relief embedded in the wall depicting Aeneas fleeing Troy with his father and son.
Inscription above the entrance to a large tomb of a Romanized native nobleman from Pest County.
Fragment of a relief of a tripus with a pig on a stone table from Dunapentele.
Individualized portrait of a military officer, with gods of wind next to him, from Óbuda.
Fragment of a soldier's gravestone from Ószőny, with battle scene from the Marcomannic-Sarmatian wars.
Base of a statue of the emperor erected in a fortress, from Szentendre.
The common sarcophagus of Adiutrix, interpreter of the Legio II of Brigetio, and his son, an Imperial bodyguard, from Ószőny.
Stone top of a garden table with a fountain, from Dunapentele.
Inscription capturing the renovation of the commander's quarters in a fortress, from Érd.
Marble funerary plaque of a veteran praetorian guard and his wife in verse, from Szombathely.
Inscription of the occasion of erecting a temple for the Genius of Roman citizens, from Adony.
