The oldest tools preserved till our times were made of rocks and minerals, notably mainly from siliceous rocks and obsidian, struck on a suitable place by the help of another stone (hammerstone) or softer and pliant antler / wood percussion tool. This technique is known as ’knapping’ as a technical term and the study of the resulting artefacts, i.e., chipped stone tools is the subject of scholarly research all over the World, from the point of view of various branches of science.

In November 2019 the Hungarian National Museum is hosting an international conference devoted to the subject from the broadest possible aspects. The topics of the conference are organised into ‘sessions’ where the actual key issues are discussed. Our exhibition is designed to give an overview on these topic for the museum visitors.

Curators of the exhibition: Katalin T. Biró and András Markó
The exhibition was compiled from the material of the Archaeological and Historical Collections of the Hungarian National Museum with kind help from Judit Antoni, Annamária Bárány, Zsuzsanna Hajnal, Erika Kiss, Tibor Kovács S. and the Exhibition Design Group of the HNM.