Memento Mori és Ars Memorandi
Vác, Március 15. tér 19.
Tuesday-Sunday
In 1994 in Vác, during the restoration work of the Dominican church, the builders came across the crypt under the church, which had been walled up more than 150 years ago. In the crypt found, 262 colorful, decorated coffins, mostly in good condition, rested the spontaneously mummified bodies of Vác citizens who died and were buried from the middle third of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, and who had survived in good condition thanks to the special climate; men, women, children, craftsmen, monks, priests, military officers, officials...
The permanent exhibition, renovated in June 2016, is housed in the medieval cellar of a residential building on the main square. Descending the steep stairs into the cool and deep cellar, visitors are greeted by a picture of the crypt from the time, as well as a list of the names of the citizens of Vác who were identified based on their coffin inscriptions. In the small room to the left of the entrance, sacral accessories (crucifixes, rosaries, and charms) found in the coffins are presented.
Painted, colorful coffins of adults and children have been placed in the impressive large hall of the cellar. The depictions of Christ, religious and death symbols visible on the coffins also refer to the religious worldview of the people of the time and their relationship to death. In the back of the room, master tailor György Stefanovics, an unknown middle-aged bourgeois woman, and a 9-year-old girl, Salamon Magdolna, lie in a glass coffin, in reconstructed clothing based on the original. This allows visitors to gain insight into the burial and funeral customs of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The mummified or partially mummified remains of the citizens of Vác buried in the Dominican crypt of Vác have been placed in the Anthropological Collection of the Hungarian Museum of Natural History.
