Ancient death masks and the prehistory of Hungarians. Lessons of a museum exhibition

Fodor, István (2014) Ancient death masks and the prehistory of Hungarians. Lessons of a museum exhibition. Hungarian Studies, 28 (1). pp. 119-138. ISSN 0236-6568

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Abstract

From June to September 2013 I was organizing an exhibition entitled “Ancient Death Masks” in the Hungarian National Museum. The most important goal of the exhibition was to display for visitors an idea supported by scholarly research. According to this conclusion, silver and gold death masks observed in the graves of the 10^th century Hungarians who settled in the Carpathian Basin originated from Magna Hungaria, the Uralian territory of the Hungarians. We displayed death masks found in three large regions of Eurasia: that of Tashtyk Culture in the Yenisei Valley (1^st–5^th cc.), 6^th–11^th century masks of the Ural Region, and 10^th century masks from the Carpathian Basin (Fig. 1). Although the religious background of the masks in the three territories is similar, the forms of manifestation are different. From the shape of the masks we can clearly conclude that the 10^th century Hungarians brought this burial custom from the Ural Region, Magna Hungaria. This can be cited among the few pieces of archaeological evidence (compeer to the historical evidence) attesting to the migration of the Hungarians from the east to the west.

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