Renovated Rotunda and New Exhibitions Now Open in Ópusztaszer20 August 2010
The European Union granted support of over 463 million HUF to the infrastructural development of the National Historical Heritage Park in Ópusztaszer. The project’s total cost is 640 million HUF. As part of the Saint Stephen’s day celebrations in Csongrád county, the renovated main building was inaugurated and the exhibitions on the Conquest and the Middle Ages opened. The opening speech was made by Lóránt Lehrner, the National Development Agency’s vice president for integration.
The aim of this large-scale investment is to carry out the visitor-friendly infrastructural developments set out in the Historical Park’s heritage programme. As a result, the Feszty cyclorama and the new exhibitions in the Rotunda have the setting they deserve.
From the 1st of April, as a result of the reconstruction, visitors can view Árpád Feszty’s monumental cyclorama “Arrival of the Hungarians” from a new perspective. A small path was constructed above the foreground partly from transparent glass plates, which allows visitors to observe the painting from closer than has ever been possible since its creation and its first display at the celebration of the millennium of Hungary’s statehood.
The restorers repaired the canvas and dusted the painting and the foreground with special chemicals. The worn parts of the foreground were replaced, and some more elements were added, for example the defeated Slavic warriors are now displayed not only in the painting, but also in the foreground.
The reconstruction of the Rotunda has finished, and the building is now accessible for disabled visitors. New exhibitions have been opened on an area of 900 m2. The exhibitions display the age of the Hungarian conquest and medieval Hungary, the most researched periods of Hungarian history. Even though there are many new findings in this field, they have never before been displayed collectively in any Hungarian museum, so these exhibitions are unique and fill a gap.
The objects displayed at the exhibition “Hungarian conquest – fiction and reality” show visitors the everyday life of our ancestors who settled in the Carpathian Basin, their beliefs and clothing. In the exhibition “Monastery and settlement of Szer”, the items displayed were found during the excavation of the medieval church and monastery from 1970. The exhibition “The faces of our ancestors” displays a selection of objects found in over a thousand graves. A smaller exhibition presents the settlement and integration of the nomadic people in Hungary and the grave of a high-ranking Cumanian that was discovered in Csengele, and another exhibition give an overall picture of culture in the time of the Árpád dynasty.
Project closure is set for the end of October 2010. In addition to the above, four parking areas will be created, more than one thousand square metres of parkland will be rehabilitated, and five additional jobs created.
As a result of the project, the number of visitors is expected to increase, the park will retain and enhance its unique tourist attraction, leading to increased touristic competitiveness.