Hungarian Conquest Collection

Although it is the Collection that dates back the earliest day of the Museum still, it is the youngest collection in the Hungarian National Museum. This apparent contradiction can be explained by the fact that its first pieces had already been inventoried in 1846, the artefacts of the period were stored and registered together with the rest of the materials in the Department of Coins and Antiquities until 1909, later on, following the creation of the Department of Coins, the finds were kept in the Department of Antiquities. For the following three decades, the Migration Period Collection stored the grave-goods from the 10th and 11th century. It was only from the establishment of the Medieval Department in 1953, that the Hungarian Conquest Collection was registered as an independent unit with a separate inventory.

The material of the Collection is composed of finds from cemeteries and grave-furniture from 10th and 11th century, in all there are 12 642 object divided into 4092 units. The composition of the Collection has significantly changed during the past decades. Until the last third of the 19th century, all the finds from the Conquest period enriched the Hungarian National Museum, as there was no similar public collection in the country. The situation radically changed when the newly formed county museums and museum associations accepted more and more finds from the Conquest period due to the emerging interest in Hungary's past. Nevertheless, until 1945, the majority of the finds of great importance continued to enrich the Museum's collection by purchases and donations.

After 1926,compared to the previous decades, the number of closed find assemblages from completely or partially excavated cemeteries increased considerably providing more potential for scientific analyses. After the Collection becoming independent, this process became more characteristic, even more, after 1953 hardly any stray-finds got in the Collection. But it also resulted in the independent collection's slackening growth in really spectacular objects.