Natural History Museum

On June 18, 2002, the Natural History Museum of the Faculty of Science at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE TTK) opened its doors in the southern block of the Lágymányos Campus. Under the glass pyramid, the Biological and Paleontological Collection was established, along with the Mineral Collection, which was relocated from the Trefort Garden and rebuilt here in its original form. Today, the Museum also has a Mathematical Collection. The first head of the Museum was Dr. Géza Zboray, an adjunct professor, followed for a long period by Dr. Tamás Weiszburg, a university associate professor. Currently, Dr. Erzsébet Harman-Tóth is the director.

The "predecessor" of the Biological and Paleontological Collection was the Zoological and Comparative Anatomy Museum, founded in the 19th century by Professor Tivadar Margó, which was once considered one of the three most beautiful collections in Europe. On one occasion, even Emperor Franz Joseph I visited and spoke highly of it. This valuable collection was almost entirely destroyed during the Siege of Budapest in 1945. When it became clear that the Faculty would move from Trefort Garden to Lágymányos, the idea emerged to recreate a similar collection from our remaining and newly produced specimens and artifacts.

What has distinguished the Biological and Paleontological Collection from the outset from other biological collections and museums is that plant and animal fossils, stuffed and currently living animals, anthropological specimens and tools, anatomical preparations, and research equipment (such as microscopes, electron microscopes, microtomes, centrifuges, operating tables, etc.) are presented together in a coordinated manner to visitors. While walking past the display cases, it is worth mentioning several particularly beautiful and valuable fossils, the stunning shell collection, the Parisian human skeleton and skull preparations from the 1870s, Aurél Török's anthropometer, an almost fifty-year-old, near-first-generation German electron microscope, numerous light microscopes made in the first third of the 19th century, a stuffed specimen and skeleton of a platypus, and a high-quality collection of birds of prey.

A unique feature of this collection is that it is in daily contact with a university that practices modern scientific education and research. Some of the anatomy and zoology practical classes are held in this collection by colleagues. The central space of the Collection, with about 50 chairs available, is excellently suited for smaller events and lectures. This is utilized by the faculty's lecturers and students, as it is often used for special courses, doctoral defenses, or student events.

About the Mineral Collection

After the foundation of the University in 1635, mineralogical knowledge was taught within the framework of physics. The independent subject of natural history was introduced into education during the reforms of Maria Theresa. The Department of Natural History, which taught mineralogy, was established in 1774 within the Faculty of Philosophy. This is also the founding date of the independent mineral collection, as the department's first professor, Mathias Piller, began teaching with his extensive collection. In 1781, the Diet purchased the collection of Archduchess Maria Anna, Maria Theresa's eldest daughter, for about 25,000 Forints for the University. The great polymath of the era, Ignaz von Born—Mozart's Sarastro in "The Magic Flute"—played a significant role in organizing and cataloging the Maria Anna collection. In the 1780s and 1790s, specimens arriving from the mining offices of Hungary, Transylvania, and the Austrian hereditary provinces by royal decree also enriched the collection, which was then part of the Faculty of Medicine.

In 1809, Archduke Joseph donated to the University the collection brought from Russia by his deceased wife, Alexandra Pavlovna (daughter of Tsar Paul I of Russia), along with the original handwritten Russian-language catalogs. The first comprehensive inventory of the collection, the Catalogus Revisionalis, still on display today, was completed in 1811 under the leadership of János Schuster. By this time, the collection had grown into the largest organized educational collection in Europe. After the initial rapid development, the Reform Era passed quietly. The only notable addition was a donation by István Szaibély, a mining engineer from Rézbánya, in 1831. During the War of Independence in 1848, the collection rested in crates, and clinical wards were set up in its place.

A new era for the collection began in 1850 when the young new professor, József Szabó, brought the crates back from the National Museum's cellar. His work was temporarily continued by an excellent Austrian professor, Karl F. Peters, appointed during the Bach Era, who purchased Antal Fauser's private collection of 3,124 items to create thematic collections for teaching from these and the old specimens. From 1860, József Szabó continued to develop the collection in this manner, significantly with his acquisitions (through collection, purchase, exchange), as well as donations from numerous other scholars, university students, and private collectors.

The collection's value was enhanced not only by its quantitative growth but also by its scientific organization and its significant role in scientific research. In the new Natural History building, completed in 1885 (at today's Astoria), two large exhibition rooms, the Mineral Collection and the Rock Collection, were established, allowing for the display of about 32,000 specimens. One of the rooms survived the turbulent decades of the 20th century. Its 19th-century furniture, declared a monument, was moved to the arch-style historical room designed in a period-appropriate manner in one of the modern buildings of the Lágymányos University Campus in 2001–2002 after restoration.

In 1894, after József Szabó's death, the department and collection were taken over by Loránd Eötvös's mentor, Hungary's greatest descriptive mineralogist, József Krenner. As a curator of the National Museum, Krenner mainly developed the museum collection rather than the university one. Between 1914 and 1949, under the leadership of Professor Béla Mauritz, the collection was reorganized and cataloged, and the so-called Gót Catalog was created. During World War II, the two collections did not suffer significant damage. In 1952, citing lack of space, the Mineral and Rock Collections were merged, and the exhibition room of the latter was converted into educational and research spaces. During this transformation, much of the room's furniture was destroyed. The Collection was unharmed in 1956, unlike the National Museum's mineral collection, which was destroyed in a fire.

The new face of the merged Collection was shaped by Kálmán Imre Sztrókay (mineralogy) and Elemér Szádeczky Kardoss (petrology, geochemistry) by the late 1950s. At this time, the collection was mainly enriched by donations from geologists returning from the field, but a few famous private collections also found their way here. The most significant of these was the collection of Dezső Szrubián, a former police officer, containing valuable and aesthetic specimens. The systematic development of the collection began again in the 1980s, particularly focusing on acquiring mineral species missing from education and research, alongside the modern inventorying of the entire collection, which continues to this day. Over 230 years, the collection has moved through several buildings. In 1777, it moved from Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Slovakia) to the royal castle in Buda, then in 1784 to Pest. For decades, it was in the Faculty of Medicine building (at the corner of today's Semmelweis and Kossuth Lajos streets), and for two years, it was in the National Museum's basement. In 1854, it relocated from the Faculty of Medicine building to the University's central building (today University Square), from where it moved to the newly built Natural History ("A") building of the Trefort Garden in 1886. In 2002, after 225 years, it moved back to Buda, to its current location in Lágymányos.

The Hungarian Mathematical Museum (MaMa) is the Mathematical Collection of the Natural History Museum of ELTE TTK. Organized in the early 1990s (then still called the Tibor Bakos Mathematical Collection), one of the Museum's goals is to make mathematics visually appealing and to explore its connections with other sciences. The Museum considers it particularly important to find visual aids and models that prove useful in illustrating mathematical relationships and theorems.

The collection here includes not only objects and logical games but also numerous mathematics books, popular science books, and magazines. Volumes and collected problems of math competitions also enrich the collection. Legacies of mathematicians often find their way into the Museum. Numerous models of three-dimensional shapes and forms can be found in our Museum, mostly made of cardboard, polystyrene, or even straws. Some models and documents were created by students, so anyone can contribute to the exhibitions. In addition to domestic exhibitors, works from abroad are also preserved (such as those by Magnus Wenninger and Dan Suttin).