In this book, we provide a detailed description of the joint work conducted between 2012 and 2017, with the goal of genetically identifying the Kings of the Árpád Dynasty. The primary purpose of our research was to identify the persons whose skeletons were originally buried at the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Székesfehérvár and are currently entombed in the crypt of the Matthias Church in Budapest. The end result was the identification of a skeleton of a previously unidentified king from the Árpád Dynasty, which in turn led us to investigate the origins of the Árpáds. The task we undertook – like all research, generally speaking – was not straightforward; we ran into many obstacles and setbacks, and had to start over on several occasions.
We had to be persistent, with uncompromising belief that our objectives were achievable. We had to endure systematic criticism and disagreements, and accept constructive remarks. We expected that there would be criticisms and attacks, which is why we had decided to involve in our investigations a foreign institution whose competence is beyond any doubt: the department of Historical Anthropology and Human Ecology of the Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute for Zoology and Anthropology (University of Göttingen, Germany); their results often paved the way for us.
Chief among the criticisms was the view that the genetic analysis
of the royal bones should be performed by a dedicated institution, whereas we conducted this in the National Institute of Oncology in Budapest, which has a very different profile. Several people, including Kinga Éry, expressed serious concerns about whether or not we were even capable of carrying out this task. Her doubts were especially great with regard to the fact that there had already been an attempt to identify the particular royal bones with foreign help, but it yielded no results at all. Others doubted that a team of researchers primarily composed of doctors could even distinguish one human skeleton from another. Others still gave advice on how to begin such a task. An example of the latter is Balázs Mende’s study Hogyan ne azonosítsuk az Árpád-házi királyokat? [How not to identify Kings of the Árpád Dynasty?], in which he suggests using relics as controls. However, we did not want to use relics even if we were able to, not only for reasons of piety, but also because there was no pressing need to do so, seeing that we could rely beyond doubt on the genetic data provided by the skeleton identified as belonging to King Béla III.
We needed to learn new things along the way, a process which was facilitated by constant communication. Gábor Tusnády, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA), provided us with some particularly useful insights: his stern, but well-intended constructive criticism helped us to repeatedly re-evaluate the data from different perspectives.
We needed to be able to connect and interpret data distant from each other, and should the need arise, to make the necessary adjustments to achieve a clear result. We developed this method of problem solving while performing modern diagnostics of tumours.
It was Dr Miklós Kásler who proposed the idea of performing genetic studies on the kings of the Árpád Dynasty in 2012 at a meeting of medical professionals in Szeged, after a presentation on the genetic analysis of bones extracted from graves in Hungary by Professor Dr István Raskó. At that point, we believed that this idea could be realized at the National Institute of Oncology (NIO) for the following reasons: (a) The tools necessary for genetic analysis were already available there; (b) The DNA isolated from the bones would obviously be fragmented, but the NIO Tumour Pathology Centre has a great deal of experience analyzing fragmented formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded molecular DNA; (c) We are familiar with complex diagnostic problems and solving them as clearly as possible (in the interests of successful patient care), even when we do not have all of the necessary information. In such cases, we would return to the problem at hand once we had acquired new clinical information, researched new literature, or implemented new processes. This practice has often led to clear and useful diagnoses. Our work on this project benefited greatly from this ability.
The basic requirement for conducting the planned research was to reopen the sarcophagi, since this is where the skeletons of King Béla III and Queen Anne of Antioch are kept, in sarcophagi located in a separate chapel on the ground floor. Using the genetic analysis of the bone samples obtained from the royal couple, it was possible to individually identify the rest of the skeletons held in the sarcophagi of the crypt, which were thought to belong to Kings of the Árpád Dynasty or their family members. In order to confirm their possible Árpád Dynasty origins, it is important to note that each skeleton was taken to the Matthias Church from the Basilica
of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Székesfehérvár.
Dr Miklós Kásler, head of the research project, was able to obtain permission from Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, and secured one-time government funding for the research expenses.
We opened the sarcophagi in 2014 and created quite a large amount of photographic and video documentation when taking samples from the bones. We also generated computed tomographic (CT) images and used several genetic, mathematical and special morphological methods in the analyses. We then aligned the resulting genetic data with the results of the historical, archaeological, anthropological and radiocarbon research. The logical ordering of the evidence pertaining to particular results, the clarification and articulation of correlations, and the publication of the vast amounts of image documentation supporting those correlations are – with the exception of publications submitted during the process – only possible in book form. We are aware that others may interpret the data differently, but as far as we are concerned we remained grounded within the framework of scientific methodology and ethics. Although we tried our best to be as clear as possible, the specialized genetic data and many other kinds of data can be hard to understand. We have tried to mitigate this by including a glossary, as well as a summary at the end of each chapter.
Having mentioned all of the above, we heartily recommend this book for all who wish to know more about the brightest era in Hungarian history and Hungary’s most important kings, to those wishing to pay homage to their recently identified remains in a heavenly pantheon, and on this earth, at the site where their eternal
slumber has been disturbed by history. We also recommend our work to anyone wanting to peek into the workings of modern genetics.
Budapest, August 2019
Miklós Kásler and Zoltán Szentirmay