Finding the burial place of King Béla III and Anne of Antioch in 1848

Demeter, Zsófia (2022) Finding the burial place of King Béla III and Anne of Antioch in 1848. In: Kings and Saints : The Age of the Árpáds. Publications of the Institute of Hungarian Research (6). Magyarságkutató Intézet; Szent István Király Múzeum, Budapest, Székesfehérvár, pp. 65-88. ISBN 9786156117656

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Abstract

On 5 December 1848, the grave of the first, and so far the last, royal couple whose identity was confirmed with certainty – by common consent – was found in Székesfehérvár. We should also add that this was the last proven burial of a ruler of the Árpád dynasty in the capital of the royal house (since the burial place of the child László III, who died in 1205, is unknown). The finds were, and still are, interesting, not only because they were undisturbed: neither conquerors nor treasure hunters had managed to rob the graves. This was also of particular importance from a historical and cultural history perspective, since János Érdy’s archaeological excavation method and the results are still considered exemplary by his scientific successors. It was the excavation and the interest generated around it that led scientists to investigate the person, age, historical role and greatness of Béla III, and the excavation is the only source from which we know about the representation of the ruler in death. The original state of the king’s grave and the other graves in the vicinity can be reconstructed from the excavation documentation, such as the drawings made by János Varsányi on site (although Varsányi himself drew the queen’s grave based on the accounts of those on site, after the outer coffin had been opened before his arrival). Admittedly after many ups and downs, the royal skeletons discovered became the subject of study by generations of Hungarian anthropologists. In 1935, Lajos Bartucz expressed the importance of re-examining all the bones that had been discovered by that time: “They will shed some light on the inheritance of certain anthropological stamps in the family of the Árpáds.” It is fitting and just that the finds of the graves discovered in 1848, six hundred years later, are now at the centre of archaeogenetic studies.

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