Linda here –
During a recent trip to Hungary I visited the paleontological and archeological exhibition of the Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum in Békéscsaba, in the south east of Hungary. The museum is named after Mihály Munkácsy, a Hungarian painter of the 19th century. The majority of the museum focuses on art, but there are many other exhibitions, especially covering Hungarian history — and that of course begins with paleontology. They first show some of the extinct fauna of Hungary before moving on to showcase the extant wildlife and local prehistoric archeology, namely Neolithic, Copper Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and so on.
After traveling back in time through a neon coloured tunnel (Fig. 1), the museum shows the geologic time scale (Fig. 2) so that guests can get a feeling for it and understand how long ago different events took place. The entire exhibition, including this time scale, is in Hungarian and there are no English explanations, but I used a translator app and that worked very well.
Next, we see small fossils from different periods and epochs, such as leaves and a fish from the Oligocene (Fig. 3), before a larger section showcases the Pleistocene megafauna of Hungary, including the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius; Fig. 4), aurochs (Bos primigenius), and giant elk (Megaloceros giganteus).
An interactive map is projected on a large Hungary-shaped table and shows a variety of environmental parameters and how they have changed throughout time, such as where the major Hungarian rivers Danube and Tisza were during the Pleistocene (Fig. 5).
After establishing what the environment looked like in the past, the museum also includes a small zoological section showing extant wildlife which was already present in the area at the time. They exhibit species that live together in the same habitat together in the same display (Fig. 6), which really makes it possible to imagine the ecology of the area.
Once the Pleistocene environment and fauna have been established, the exhibition continues with its archeological section and showcases tools and ceramics (Fig. 7) of the prehistoric population that settled here during the early Holocene. Later on, the exhibition also includes weapons, tools and other objects created by people during the Iron Age, as well as by the Celtics and Scythians, by Romans, by medieval people and during more modern history.
Overall the paleontological exhibition is very small since this is just a fraction of the entire museum, but nonetheless it is very modern and uses up to date methods to introduce their visitors to new concepts and ideas. I really liked how they have merged the geologic time scale and the local paleoenvironments into their country’s history and decided to showcase it all together in the correct order of events. I highly recommend a visit!