Néprajzi Múzeum közműépítése
Lelőhely-azonosító: 15198
Kulcsszavak: középkor, település
Between October 28, 2019, and November 18, 2020, archaeological monitoring was conducted on the external utility construction works of the new building of the Museum of Ethnography. The earthworks were carried out during the excavation of rainwater and sewage drains connected to the museum building block, and the soakaway pit located north of the building in the former Rondó area.
During the laying of the pipelines, soil layers were exposed along routes widened to one meter, and two meters at the inspection shafts, to depths of 1.5 to 3 meters from the current surface, depending on the slope of the flow bed. The surface around the building was found to be roughly level, with elevations ranging between approximately 106.1 and 107.6 a.B.S.l.*.
The drains running from the museum building’s southeastern and southwestern walls along Dózsa György Road were located within the backfill of the construction pit; only modern sandy backfill was visible there. On the building’s northwestern side facing Hősök tere (Heroes’ Square), beneath the concrete pavement and broken stone foundation, the yellow sandy subsoil was encountered at a depth of about one meter.
Northeast of the building, in the park area (Rondó), the natural topsoil was generally found beneath 1 to 1.5 meters of modern backfill mixed with contemporary debris. However, sections were identified where the yellow sandy subsoil appeared directly beneath the backfill. Many old utilities were present in the Rondó area, whose trenches also reached the subsoil. The upper part of the humus topsoil had been disturbed by modern earthworks and landscaping.
A typical stratigraphic sequence was observed on the drainage section located 15 meters from the building’s southeastern corner towards the park: surface (107.3 a.B.S.l.), 140 cm of sand, gravel, clay (possibly 19th-century) backfill, 20 cm yellow sand, 20 cm yellowish-brown sand containing medieval ceramics with silt infiltration, 10 cm dark gray silty sand streak, 40 cm yellow sand, and 20 cm dark gray silty sand between these layers.
Medieval fragments were recovered within a 20-meter radius of the building’s eastern corner; however, no archaeological features were identified.
The soakaway pit was excavated as a 20×20-meter square, 3.6 meters deep, with a larger area of the original, natural stratigraphy visible in its walls. Beneath the 70–100 centimeter-thick backfill, a terrain depression sloping towards the Városliget lake, roughly along a north-northwest to south-southeast direction, was identified. The top of the humus sandy soil, which became black and clayey downward, descended from an elevation of 106.3 to 105.5 a.B.S.l.; this depression was filled with yellow sand.
During the excavation of the soakaway pit, two features were identified: a sloped-sided ditch with brown humus sandy fill in the southeastern wall (Fig. 1), and an indistinctly outlined pit in the thick black clayey layer at the bottom of the terrain depression in the northwestern section wall (Fig. 2). Some medieval pottery shards were mixed into the fill of the latter. The pit barely reached the subsoil.
Due to modern disturbances and the linear nature of the construction, traces associated with the medieval site discovered during the museum’s construction were also identified towards the northeast.
Contributors: Gábor Gyenes, archaeological technician
Gábor Gyenes