Gergő Paukovics

Megjelent online a Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltárának „A hét dokumentuma” című sorozatában 2018. május 2-án.


1919. április 25-én nevezték ki Dr. Ferenczi Sándor idegorvost a világon elsőként létrejött „psychoanalytikai tanszék” élére. Ezen alkalomból a teljesség igénye nélkül mutatom be a magyarországi pszichoanalitikus mozgalom megalapítójának és egyben legkiemelkedőbb alakjának egyetemi professzori kinevezésének nem mindennapi történetét.

This article presents a comparison of Hungarian zooarchaeological protocols and related documents. My research reviewed institutions’ protocols on collecting and preserving bioarchaeological data, with a special focus on zooarchaeological materials. I demonstrate the similarities and differences of the protocols through a qualitative analysis of their content and coherency.

Dóra Mérai, Ágnes Drosztmér, Kyra Lyublyanovics, Judith Rasson, Zsuzsanna Papp Reed,
András Vadas, Csilla Zatykó (eds.) Genius loci – Laszlovszky 60. Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2018.

Serge Voronoff 1866-ban született az oroszországi Sechmanyban. Neve ma talán csak néhányaknak csenghet ismerősen, egykor azonban az egész világ róla beszélt Rio de Janeirótól New Yorkon át Budapestig. Voronoff és kortársai munkásságát irodalmi művekből, filmekből, talán egy-két különcökről szóló cikkből minden bizonnyal sokan ismerik, csak éppen nem tudják, hogy róluk szól a történet. Voronoff személyisége és orvosi beavatkozásainak bizarrsága számtalanszor megihlette az írók, újságírók fantáziáját, ám ebből adódóan sokan sokféleképpen, és leginkább hanyagul, felületesen írták meg történetét. Mindez hozzájárult ahhoz a torz tudós-képhez, amelyben sokszor feltüntetik. Írásomban azt mutatom be, hogyan fogadta a magyar, azon belül is elsősorban a fővárosi sajtó Voronoff személyiségét és tevékenységét az 1920-as évek elején.

The identification of worked or "ad hoc" animal bone artefacts during archaeological fieldwork is often difficult. Two worked skates from the Roman Period excavation of MOL-Rossi in Komárom (Hungary) from 2007 lied also unidentified in the museum’s warehouse until 2012. These two artefacts are probably the first processed finds in Hungary from the Roman province of Pannonia. In this paper the author compares the finds with the so far known European examples, and places them into the continuity of the Carpathian Basin's history.

Sources concerning various human congenital malformations are well known from early Antiquity to the Modern Times, but what about the animals? The first known source is the Šumma izbu, an ancient Mesopotamian compendium of around 2,000 teratological omens from 1300 BC. In these texts first descriptions of many disorders can be found such as different types of conjoined twinning or polydactyly. Some of these omens appear in the Roman Period by Julius Obsequens, Valerius Maximus and Tacitus. The thesis, that the Babylonian-Assyrian point of view spread through Asia Minor to the Greeks, and Romans originates from Morris Jastrow jr. (1914). The Latin term monstrum reflects the idea, that such phenomena sign some upcoming event to demonstrate the will of a deity. We have many more written and pictorial sources from the late Middle Ages from Ambroise Paré, Thomas Bartholinus and Ulisse Aldrovandi. The scarcity of comparable archaeological materials can be answered with four reasons:
1. Minor anomalies on the bones are hard to detect in the animal.
2. Many major abnormalities resulted in the animal’s perinatal death. In this stage of development the bones are poorly mineralized, resulting a rapid dissolution.
3. Many inherited deformities affected the soft tissue, nearly always missing from archaeological materials.
4. Malformed stillborns were often fed to the dogs or thrown into rivers.

In my thesis I offer a new bioarchaeological protocol with a special focus on animal remains for the medieval archaeological site of Pomáz-Nagykovácsi-puszta (Hungary, Pest County). Therefore I compared Hungarian zooarchaeological protocols and related documents through qualitative analysis in order to critically illuminate the following problems:
1. Lack of unified approach
2. Different focal points
3. Missing important issues
I analysed and compared the different concepts and approaches towards bioarchaeology in North-America, Europe, and Hungary. This comparison resulted that there is no unified approach in the field neither in Europe, nor across the Atlantic. Unified terminology helps researchers of different field of study to understand and to effectively communicate each other. For this purpose I deliberately employ the original, holistic concept towards bioarchaeology, which this way in my view could contribute more to the field of archaeology.
Through three selected case studies I shed light on methods used in practice from the planning period of an excavation until the implementation,  and long-term archiving. Each of the case studies is designed to emphasise different set of issues in bioarchaeology such as excavation strategy, sampling, storage, and discarding policies.
My research on Hungarian and international protocols, and best practices helped me to develop a new set of principles and a new bioarchaeological protocol for the planned excavation site of Pomáz-Nagykovácsi-puszta.