Welcome to the ARGUM

In October 2011, the first Hungarian Archaeometallurgical Research Group was established. This group is the only one so far in the country. The members of this group are mainly Engineers – particularly Material Engineers and Metallurgists - but Archaeologists also play valuable parts in it. The group has no legal entity. It is fully operating under the management of the University of Miskolc. The members founded an interdisciplinary research group in response to the growing numbers of archeometallurgical examination and research demands in recent years. The group is continuously working on project by project basis. They have a well-equipped research infrastructure and professional relationships.

In previous years, the number of direct and indirect collaborations between the researchers and lecturers of the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, the Faculty of Earth Science and Engineering and the Faculty of Arts at University of Miskolc, has increased significantly.

The themes and objectives of these collaborations are to continue such interdisciplinary studies on the excavated archaeological findings which relate to metal production and use of metal product.
The first examinations started in an ad-hoc nature but were handled as proper projects. These groups always endeavoured to publish the results of these collaborations as far as it possible.

The main reasons we must established an organized research group to be able to accomplish archeometallurgical examination and research are:

• The expansion and intensification of the communication among the research team
• The accumulating tasks and possibilities to archeometallurgical research
• The popularity of interdisciplinary subjects and disciplines that became a parts of the educational structure of some faculties of the University of Miskolc.

Another clear motivation to establish this working group that there was no such archeometallurgical research team in our country before. The University of Miskolc is highly predestined as a venue where there are highly educated researchers and high quality infrastructure which can strongly support these dynamically developing, new research areas where the multi-disciplinary nature of disciplines can work together.

Nowadays, only at the University of Miskolc where traditional, special engineering faculties (Materials Science and Engineering, Earth Science and Engineering) with Department of Prehistory and Archaeology of the Faculty of Arts can work together continuously and in organized co-operation within a single institution in the Hungarian higher education.