An interactive exhibition on the history of Szeged can be seen in the Castle, and the Stone collection is a place of Szeged's old architectural monuments.
The history of the former castle of Szeged:
The medieval castle of Szeged was built below the confluence of the Maros and Tisza rivers, on one of the islands standing out from the waterways. In the Roman era, the settlement named Partiskon, mentioned by Ptolemy, could have been here. The Romans in this place in AD. u. 2. a road station was established in the 19th century. Traces of this were found during the demolition of the castle: among other things, a marble portrait of the emperor and a stone with an inscription, which was erected by the commander of the imperial courier post.
In the era of the migration, the conquest, and then Árpád, the old Roman remains were probably also used for military purposes, since the important Tisza crossing, the salt transported from Transylvania on the Maros and its transshipment port could never be imagined without military supervision. A permanent castle was built only after the Tatar invasion, in the second half of the 13th century. took place in the second half of the century. Almost all our kings passed through its walls in the Middle Ages. It also hosted the National Assembly several times.
After the Battle of Mohács and the capture of Buda in 1526, the retreating Turkish armies ransacked the city together with the castle. At the carnival of 1543, the castle came back into Turkish hands almost without resistance, this time for 143 years The exterior of the castle, which was liberated in 1686, is known from the surveys and drawings of imperial military engineers, and from a painting made in 1709, an authentic representation of the Máriacelli icon. All of them depict an irregular square brick castle with four corner towers. The buildings of the castle were covered with red roof tiles. The vast majority of the extensive brick fortification was of medieval origin.
In the Middle Ages, the gates opening towards Szolnok, Buda, Timisoara, and Pétervárad were still protected by gate towers in the direction of all main horizons. During the Turkish rule, the northern and eastern gates (facing the Tisza) were walled up, and the western Buda gate was narrowed to a pedestrian entrance. Its only entrance was the southern gate tower, protected by a fort covering the area of today's Roosevelt Square.
Inside the castle, we know about the two most significant of the medieval buildings. The Árpád-era Palace, built using Roman walls, stood on the corner of today's Vár street and Deák Ferenc street. The knight's hall was covered with vaulted ceilings, divided into booths and columns decorated with carved plinths and capitals in the Romanesque style. Its outer wall plane was covered with a painting of white, yellow and black slanted squares.
In the middle of the courtyard stood the imposing Gothic castle church - according to András Dugonics - the church of St. Elizabeth. It was a building reinforced with Gothic buttresses, with a sacristy on the north side and a side chapel on the south side, whose Gothic star vault became known during the excavations. Its multi-story slender tower rose on the north side. According to our current data, the church dates back to the 14th century. built in the middle of the century.
During the demolition of the castle and the excavations of recent years, the delicate stone carvings that decorated the entrance, the windows and the interior of the church were found. Today, these carvings, which prove the architectural quality of medieval Szeged in Europe, can be seen in the stone vault in the courtyard of the castle ruins facing the Tisza. The 18th At the beginning of the 18th century, the castle authorities demolished the church.
A part of the castle was converted into a prison at the end of the 18th century, in which before 1848 Italian prisoners of war and then the captured outlaws of the royal commissioner Gedeon Ráday sent to eradicate the outlaw world of the Southern Great Plain, including Sándor Rózsa, were imprisoned. „Közösség által ellenőrizve” ikon Between 1876 and 1882, the entire fortification, the largest medieval brick castle in the Great Plain, was demolished, with the exception of the Baroque-era, so-called Mária Terézia-kapu, which is still standing today.
The remains of the castle were covered with a roof in 1999. On the city side, on the site of the demolished facade of the former gate, a block containing the reception and service units of the museum exhibition and storage rooms was built.
The northern wall of the Gothic castle church was discovered when construction began. About seven hundred medieval burials have so far been found in the interior of the church and in the cemetery around the church, which is the first archaeologically known medieval cemetery in Szeged. Due to the continuous burials over hundreds of years, the graves lie closely next to each other or on top of each other at the moment of excavation, giving the impression of a "mass grave". However, this is only an appearance, even in the Middle Ages there was a specific burial order, the graves were arranged in a system, in rows. However, this is only an appearance, even in the Middle Ages there was a specific burial order, the graves were arranged in a system, in rows.
There are single and double burials, as well as common graves containing several generations of a family, as well as family crypts built of bricks. Buttons, clothespins, clothing and belt ornaments, earrings, and coin accessories are often found in the graves. Although in the case of those buried according to the Christian rite, the pagan custom of giving appendages intended for the journey to the afterlife was forbidden, the XIV. In the graves of the Cuniks, which also stand out here in the 19th century, we often find other objects in the graves.
With the discovery, one of Szeged's most important medieval monuments becomes visible. True, with several years of work, we were only able to uncover the western half of the church building. If the excavation continues and it becomes possible to present the emerging walls, in addition to the Dömötör tower and the Alsóváros church, Szeged can boast a third medieval monument.
