Esztergom

Former capital of Hungary (up to 1198) and the seat of Hungary's primary archbishop, Esztergom played a central role in Hungary's life. When the new cathedral church was built at the beginning of the 19th century, the ruins of the old one were completely torn down, and not much has remained of the adjacent palace either. Remains of the palace were excavated in the 1930s, and excavations on the Castle Hill and elswehere in town have continued since then. Today at least 5000 carved stones are kept in various temporary storage facilities in Esztergom. About 100 pieces are exhibited in the Castle Museum, and about two dozen tombstones are in the crypt of the Cathedral. Several more stone carvings have recently been displayed in a new Lapidarium, opened inside the castle museum. The Museum is housed in the former royal/archiepiscopal palace, which has been rebuilt in 2000. The collection and the museum is officially part of the Hungarian National Museum.

Budapest

With more than 20% of the countrywide material, the Budapest History Museum manages the largest collection of stone fragments in Hungary, most of them coming from various exhibitions in the territory of Budapest, including the Buda Royal Palace. The material includes the fragments of the Buda Royal Palace, the church of Our Lady in Buda, the Óbuda royal castle and churches, as well as material from various other medieval churches in the territory of Budapest. While some of the most important pieces are exhibited in the museum, most are kept in various storage facilities scattered throughout the city, and ongoing excavations keep enlarging the corpus. The most important current excavations are the ones on Szent György Square in the Buda Castle.

Székesfehérvár

Székesfehérvár is the site of the ruins of the former royal basilica, Hungary's coronation church, and the burial place of many kings. Essentially only the foundations survived, along with countless fragments of architectural and sculptural material. Excavations here have been going on since the middle of the nineteenth century. Currently a new museum exhibition is being planned. Most of the fragments are catalogued, but not yet published in detail.

The Visegrád Palace Museum, a unit of the Hungarian National Museum has a large and ever-growing collection of stones as well. Excavations in the Royal Palace are still going on, revealing further material. Exhibitions inside the palace and in the nearby Salamon tower provide adequate circumstances for viewing the most important pieces of the collection. Much of the material has been catalogued in the first Lapidarium Hungaricum volume, and continuous publications ensure that this monument is one of the better known ones in Hungary. The Royal Palace itself has been reconstructed on a scale unimagined before.

All of the medieval stone scultpure from the cathedral of Pécs has been removed at the time of the nineteenth century reconstruction. The material, Hungary's most important group of Romanesque statuary has not been on view for decades. The Cathedral Museum is now open, providing much-needed access to the material. A new catalogue will make the material even more accessible. Meanwhile it is not certain how the results of new excavations, which revealed chapels by the cathedral and the remains of a building, identified as the University of Pécs, will be shown.

Remains of the Cistercian Abbey of Pilis, an important royal foundation, were excavated during the 1970s. Most of the material is kept in various storage facilities at or near the site, and the stones have recently been catalogued (not published). The most important sculptural work - including the tomb of Queen Gerturdis and the reconstructed choir screen - is exhibited at the Hungarian National Gallery.

The Benedictine Abbey Church of Ják is regarded as the country's finest Romanesque building. The statues of the western portal have deteriorated so much over the last century that it became necessary to take them of, and replace them with replicas. The original statues, as well as other material from the church will soon be exhibited in a new museum built on the site.