CEU held its first Borderless Knowledge (Határtalan Tudás) lecture of this academic year in September. The event asked several questions: why does the heart-shaped area of the Pilis Mountains have a special place in Hungarian culture? What are the archaeological mysteries of Pilis and what tools are being used to discover them? Are there any more secrets to uncover? Were there royal burials taking place in the Pilis? Where exactly was the royal center of Hungary a thousand years ago and how can we find it? How can landscape archaeology help?
The lecturer of the evening was Professor Jozsef Laszlovszky, archaeologist and researcher of the Visegrad Royal Center, Director of Cultural Heritage Studies Program at CEU. He was accompanied by archaeologist Katalin Tolnai, land surveyor, Geographic Information System (GIS) expert and researcher in the topic of the nomadic ruin cities of the Khitan Empire. She presented the latest tools that archaeologists use to map areas, tools that make archaeology fundamentally different from what it was two or three decades ago: satellite images, drones, small planes, the LiDAR laser detection technology, magnetometers and ground-penetrating radars.
You can watch the recorded lecture here (in Hungarian, with English subtitles).