Archaeology in Exchange | 2nd Symposium on the Hungarian–Chinese Archaeological Exchange Program
2026.09.09 10:30
The Damjanich János Museum cordially invites you to attend the symposium:
Archaeology in Exchange
2nd Symposium on the Hungarian–Chinese Archaeological Exchange Program
Conference Room – Damjanich János Museum
17 September 2026
The event will be held in English.
10.00 – 10.30
Krisztina Hoppál (ELTE Roman World and the Far East Research Group)
Roman Objects in China Routes, Networks and Interactions
10.30 – 10.50
Zhong Wantong (Peking University)
Functions, Forms, and Regional Characteristics of Tomb Pillars in Eastern Han Brick-and-Stone Chamber Tombs: With a Discussion of Foreign Cultural Influence
10.50 – 11.10.
Xu Jiayu (Peking University)
Study on the Shengjing Mountain Stone Hall
11.10 – 11.30
Rusyanti (Research Center for Archaeometry, The National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia/ University of Debrecen)
An Overview of the Existence of the Martaban Jar in the Mainland of Borneo, Indonesia
11.30 – 11.50
Questions
11.50 – 12.30
Lunch and coffee break
12.30 – 12.50
Kevin Kürti (Eötvös Loránd University)
New Perspectives on Early 20th-Century Excavations: Reassessing the Stratigraphy, Archives, and Assemblages of the Büdös-pest cave
12.50 – 13.10
Péter F. Kovács (Damjanich János Museum)
Connecting regions through the river valleys in the Great Hungarian Plain
13.10 – 13.30
Vivien Szabó (Damjanich János Museum)
Sarmatian metalworking workshop material from the banks of the Körös (Mesterszállás, Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County, Hungary)
13.30 – 13.50
Balázs Jancsik (Damjanich János Museum)
With one foot in Asia, with the other one in Europe: the migration of early Hungarians, and their material culture in Middle Tisza region
Abstracts
Krisztina Hoppál (ELTE Roman World and the Far East Research Group)
Roman Objects in China Routes, Networks and Interactions
The Eastern trade of the Roman Empire, specifically Rome’s possible contacts with China in the 1st–5th centuries – since the two great states are generally being considered the Western and Eastern edges of the Silk Road – has been one of the most compelling fields of research as early as the 19th century.
It is widely accepted that the two realms had only indirect contacts, in which products were moved through a series of middlemen, mostly by using networks of the land and maritime Silk Roads. However, the exact identification of these middlemen is still a matter of question. In order to get a deeper understanding of the possible ways certain Roman artefacts reached China, it is crucial to study other Roman interpreted objects discovered in locations along the Silk Roads, particularly beyond India.
Accordingly, by collecting, analyzing and comparing Roman and Roman-related finds discovered in certain regions beyond India, it is possible to take steps towards their periodization and possible ways reaching East and Southeast Asia. Moreover, by comparing archaeological contexts of Roman finds from regions yielding relatively significant amount of non-local items (particularly coastal China, Xinjiang and Thailand), certain differences between their receptions and roles in local cultures can be determined.
Zhong Wantong (Peking University)
Functions, Forms, and Regional Characteristics of Tomb Pillars in Eastern Han Brick-and-Stone Chamber Tombs: With a Discussion of Foreign Cultural Influence
This study focuses on the three-dimensional tomb pillars found in stone chamber tombs and mixed brick-and-stone tombs. It establishes two classification systems—one based on position and function, the other on form—and separates the practical level from the decorative-symbolic level, so as to avoid conflating structural function with stylistic features. On this basis, tomb pillars can be divided into four regional groups: Shandong–northern Jiangsu, Nanyang–northern Hubei, northern Shaanxi–northwestern Shanxi, and Liaoning–Liaoyang, each with its own emphasis in structural arrangement and combinations of styles. Among these regions, the freestanding central pillar system is most developed in the Shandong–northern Jiangsu area, where the greatest variety of pillar types and the densest concentration of foreign cultural elements occur. In the other regions, door-frame pillars or pictorial door pillars predominate, and foreign influence is weaker and largely confined to the iconographic level. Foreign influence can be further divided into three levels: pictorial motifs, material and formal styles, and architectural technology. In Eastern Han tomb pillars, foreign elements remain mainly at the first two levels and did not yet fundamentally alter the load-bearing system. Architectural images on coins may have served as one of the media through which foreign forms were transmitted, offering a new perspective for understanding the mechanism of their dissemination.
Xu Jiayu (Peking University)
Study on the Shengjing Mountain Stone Hall
A wealth of stone buildings of the Ming and Qing dynasties have survived in southern Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province. The Shengjingshan Stone Hall is a typical exemplar of stone architecture in Southeast China. Current studies are mostly limited to macroscopic overview, lacking systematic analysis of its architectural form, structural features and phased renovations and alterations.
Taking the Shengjingshan Stone Hall complex as the research subject, this paper adopts integrated methods including field survey and mapping, architectural archaeology, cross-verification of historical documents and stone inscriptions, and regional comparative case study. It systematically combbs the site’s historical evolution, natural and cultural environment, overall layout and individual architectural features, profoundly analyzes the construction techniques and structural logic of its stonework, clarifies the replacement and alteration sequence of components in the front hall, and reconstructs its early architectural layout.
The research reveals that the Shengjingshan Stone Hall was first built in the Southern Song Dynasty and repeatedly renovated and modified in the Ming and Qing dynasties, eventually forming a compound cultural space that integrates Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism and folk beliefs. Its layout with offset axes is the joint outcome of mountainous terrain constraints and successive dynastic constructions. The architectural complex has developed distinctive regional craftsmanship in roof structure, wall masonry, integral monolithic stone carving, mortise-tenon joints, and the ancient Shengqi (roof ridge rising) construction method. Both the front and rear halls underwent obvious heightening and reconstruction, retaining mixed structural components from different historical periods.
This study expands the research corpus on stone hall architecture in Wenzhou and even the broader Southeast China, defines the unique heritage value of the Shengjingshan Stone Hall, and provides empirical evidence and academic reference for the conservation, restoration of southern stone architecture, as well as research on similar historic relics.
Rusyanti (Research Center for Archaeometry, The National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia/ University of Debrecen)
An Overview of the Existence of the Martaban Jar in the Mainland of Borneo, Indonesia
Martaban jars have appeared in historical literature since the 14th century and were popular in the 19th and 20th centuries AD as a commodity produced by potters in southern China and Indochina; they were the sole type of commodity of great importance and influence to the peoples of South-East Asia. Originally used as functional containers for packaging goods traded along maritime routes, they have evolved into antique, aesthetic, and sacred objects recognized throughout mainland Southeast Asia. Today, they remain a symbol of culture and identity for the Dayak people, including those in Malaysia and Brunei. Sacred significance is also found in Japan, Thailand, Myanmar, and the Philippines. This deep-rooted presence of the Martaban in these communities as both a profane and sacred object in various contexts makes it an unusual cultural phenomenon worthy of discussion. This discussion focuses on the current status of the Martaban, particularly in Kalimantan, Indonesia. It asks where it first appeared, how it has been distributed, how it has changed over time, and how Dayak people perceive it today. Using a phenomenological approach within post-processual archaeology, this study examines how the object evolved into a recognized marker of Dayak identity. It also serves as an initial step toward understanding that objects have their own biographies and life cycles, in which meanings can be fluid while also shaped by political, social, and cultural negotiations and constructions.
Kevin Kürti (Eötvös Loránd University)
New Perspectives on Early 20th-Century Excavations: Reassessing the Stratigraphy, Archives, and Assemblages of the Büdös-pest cave
Hungarian Paleolithic research relies heavily on significant legacy collections recovered during excavations conducted in the early 20th century. However, resolving key research questions regarding these assemblages remains challenging due to the contextual and stratigraphic data lost to historical excavation methodologies. Büdös-pest Cave, located in the Bükk Mountains of Hungary, has remained largely understudied despite yielding one of the largest artifact assemblages among the cave sites in the region. This thesis aims to reconstruct the site's excavation history by synthesizing publications spanning a 30-year period, while providing a comprehensive re-examination of the lithic material, stratigraphy and archive material.
Péter F. Kovács (Damjanich János Museum)
Connecting regions through the river valleys in the Great Hungarian Plain
The Middle Tisza region, located in the heart of the Great Hungarian Plain, constitutes an important mesoregion. Due to its geographical position, it has often been referred to throughout history as a key communication hub, primarily characterized by west–east connections.
The eastward migration of the La Tène culture, dated to the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BC, took place within a well-defined geographical setting that can be interpreted as a migration corridor. The density of sites decreases markedly with increasing distance from this corridor.
From the Middle La Tène period onwards, influences from the northern Balkans become increasingly dominant along the Tisza region. This is also supported by recent finds, such as certain types of enamel inlayed fibulae (Boljevci variant, Gomolava type), wagon components, coins, and other artefacts.
At the same time, the distribution of coins originating from the northwestern Carpathian Basin (Lapujtő type) and glass bracelets (Érsekújvár type) suggests that the valleys of the Tisza and Zagyva rivers may have functioned as a contact corridor between the communities of the northern and northwestern regions of the Carpathian Basin and the northern Balkans.
Vivien Szabó (Damjanich János Museum)
Sarmatian metalworking workshop material from the banks of the Körös (Mesterszállás, Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County, Hungary)
This presentation provides the primary results and a preliminary interpretation of the find material from a newly discovered Sarmatian metalworking workshop (or workshops). The finds were recovered during the 2020s in the outskirts of Mesterszállás, at a previously unrecorded archaeological site. Approximately 35 brooches and brooch fragments were found, including pieces that can be identified as workshop debris. Further evidence of copper-alloy-based metalworking at the site includes numerous wire fragments, sheet metal fragments, elongated mounts with rivet holes, and casting waste. The assemblage also contains at least 60 Roman coins, predominantly bronze issues and their fragments.
The find material from Mesterszállás is distributed across an area of approximately one hectare. Its interpretation presents certain challenges, as it cannot yet be definitively linked to a single industrial feature. Most object types, including the coins, show a wide spatial distribution within this dense scatter. Since the presence of a settlement is also expected at the site, certain metal objects (e.g., silver coins, silver lunulae, axe-shaped pendants, and mirror fragments) may be associated with settlement activity rather than the workshop, in addition to clear settlement or funerary finds of non-metallic material (glass vessel fragments, terra sigillata, beads). Planned future research will likely be necessary to clarify the exact nature of the site.
Our knowledge of Sarmatian-period metalworking is quite limited. The only detailed publication of a copper-based metalworking workshop material comes from nearby Tiszaföldvár. (The two sites are located 15 km apart; however, they are situated within the Tiszazug region where the Triple Körös flows into the Tisza. Tiszaföldvár lies on the bank of the Tisza, while the Mesterszállás site is situated on the primary bank of the Körös.) The nature of the two assemblages is defined by their recovery methods: in Tiszaföldvár, an industrial feature was excavated, whereas the Mesterszállás material was recovered through metal detecting survey. Consequently, non-metallic objects related to workshop activities (such as crucibles and moulds) are absent from the Mesterszállás material. Furthermore, while a few blacksmith workshops have been published over the last two decades, traces of industrial activity are more commonly known only from preliminary reports.
Among the brooch types in the Mesterszállás material, the most frequent are wire brooches with a returned foot, brooches with sheet metal bows and a returned foot, and so-called Sarmatian-type crossbow brooches, complemented by a few rarer types of certain Roman origin. We attempt to interpret the find material within both a regional and supra-regional context. The evaluation is hindered by the under-researched nature of the brooches of the Sarmatian Barbaricum, and the fact that, for many types, it is currently impossible to determine whether they were also imitated in the Great Hungarian Plain region. This assemblage may provide key evidence for resolving these questions regarding specific types.
Balázs Jancsik (Damjanich János Museum)
With one foot in Asia, with the other one in Europe: the migration of early Hungarians, and their material culture in Middle Tisza region
The migration and conquest of the Hungarians in the Early Middle Ages is a process, which fundamentally shaped the history of Central and Eastern Europe. In my presentation I will make a short introduction in the history of early Hungarians, their migration from Asia to the Carpathian Basin. Here, the material culture of the early Hungarians is known from the second third of the 19th century, and nowadays it is still actively studied and excavated. In the second part of the presentation I present Early Hungarian archaeological material from the Middle Tisza region. In the last decade there were significant scientific researches in that area, for example the number of known early Hungarian archaeological sites in a particular microgreion nearly doubled.