Archeologists in Romania Discover Revered Hungarian King’s Tomb

A team of archeologists from Hungary and Romania is hailing the almost certain discovery of the tomb of a medieval Hungarian king celebrated for granting a famous charter.

General view of the excavation. Photo: National Museum of the Banat/Facebook.

A team of archeologists in Romania has established that the tomb they found in the western part of the country belongs to one of Hungary’s most revered medieval kings, Andrew II.

The son of Béla III, Andrew II granted the Golden Bull of 1222, stating the basic rights and privileges of the Hungarian nobility and clergymen as well as the limits of the monarch’s powers.

The 13th-century tombs were dug up by the archeologists, who are of Romanian and Hungarian origins, on the site of a former Cistercian church in the County of Timis, within today’s Romania.

Balázs Major, who coordinated the excavation, said they are 99 per cent certain the tombs they uncovered belong to King Andrew II and his second wife, Yolanda of Courtenay.

“Last year, we were 95 per cent sure that we found the royal grave, which increased to 99 per cent this year,” Major said about their preliminary conclusions about the discovery, which was made in the summer of 2019.

“Between the altar [of the church] and last year’s tombs, there’s still an unexcavated block; until we open it up, we leave that 1 per cent [of] uncertainty there,” Major was quoted as telling Hungary’s news agency, MTI.

The excavation has been carried out by the Pázmány Péter Catholic University’s Archeological Institute in Hungary and the Museum of the Banat region, to which the Timis Country belongs. The region belonged to Hungary before borders were changed after World War I.

The dig started in 2013 and was coordinated by Balázs Major and Daniela Tanase.

Andrew II succeeded László III on the throne in 1205. His first wife, Gertrude of Meran, was murdered by rebellious nobles in 1213.

Almost a decade later, after returning from the ill-fated Crusade to the Holy Land, angry barons fed up with his extravagances and excesses forced him to concede the Golden Bull, which imposed unprecedented limitations on the monarch’s rule and is considered Hungary’s answer to the English Magna Carta.