The results of the wall research
The excavation was preceded by wall research in the church with several probes. Based on previous research, there was concrete evidence of medieval wall decoration, as remains of wall paintings were found on the eastern wall, although these were not made at the time of the foundation, but in the mid-15th century. However, during the wall research, 11th century plaster was found in several places on the vaults and walls, demonstrating that the space had not fundamentally changed from the time of the foundation. The main change was observed in the north and south windows, which was due to the fact that in the 11th century the two sides of the nave were less built-in, so that the windows, which were open then, are now only dead windows. Another important change was observed in the corridors leading down to the crypt. Remnants of the original corridors on both sides were uncovered from under the plaster, showing that they had previously descended into the room at a slight angle, at the two corners of the west side. The early remains of the crypt also include fragments of a poured floor, colored with the bright red powdered sandstone from the area around Lake Balaton, which survives in small patches in the eastern part.
The results of the excavation
The previous excavation led by Gyula László already revealed that the church was used intensively in the modern period, so that traces of nearly twenty burials could be identified, but the number of buried could be even higher. Three of the tombs were separated from the rest, located between the first and second pair of pillars from the west. Apart from their location, the three burial pits differed from the others in that they were all lined with stone and were much narrower. These differences in size were the result of the different burial methods: while in the modern period the dead were buried in wooden coffins, in the Árpádian Age the bodies were usually covered with shrouds. The three early graves were associated with the founding king and his family, as the text of the founding charter indicated. King Andrew I may have been buried in a prominent place in the central nave, with his son Prince David and possibly his wife Queen Anastasia on either side. The excavation revealed that the long-known tombstone did not originally cover the king’s tomb, but that of his son, all the more so since the king’s tomb was renewed in the 15th century and covered with a red marble tombstone.
The aim of the excavation
In May 2021, we began excavating the church with the aim of validating the results of previous research and clarifying unclear parts of previous documentation. As recorded by Mátyás Bél (Matej Bel), the church had already been excavated in the 18th century in search of the bones of its founder, King Andrew I. Subsequently, excavations were carried out several times for renovation purposes, most recently in the 1890s, and in 1953 under the leadership of archaeologist Gyula László. One of the questions of the research was whether anything at all can be identified from the former burial place of the king, what traces of the later centuries' use have left on the building, and to what extent the present-day crypt can be considered an intact 11th century building.