BHM Castlemuseum

The Budapest History Museum Castle Museum (short: BHM Castle Museum) is located in the E-building of the Buda Royal Palace, in a historic setting, and is a part of the Budapest History Museum, which presents the Hungarian medieval and early modern heritage, as well as the defining events of Budapest's city history.

Location and building history

The museum is situated in the former royal palace wing facing Gellért Hill. Its predecessor, the Medieval Stone Archive, was opened in 1932 in the northern corner tower of the Fisherman's Bastion. In 1942 it became an independent department called the "Medieval Museum", and in 1945 it received a new headquarters at 2 Szentháromság Street, in the former Buda city hall building. In 1967 the Castle Museum – then still the Medieval Museum – moved into the E-building of the Buda Castle.

Collection and exhibition

The museum's exhibitions are held in the restored rooms of the palace, including the castle chapel. They present, among other things, the Hungarian-Anjou coat of arms silk tapestry, the globally unique Gothic sculptural relic, and the stone carvings from King Matthias's palace.

In the trace of vanished times From collectors to the conquerors on the land of Budapest

Visitors can see the most interesting pieces of the Budapest History Museum – primarily preserved in its prehistoric and migration‑period collections – ranging from 350,000‑year‑old stone tools left by the first inhabitants of the Budapest area to artifacts from the age of the Hungarian conquest.

Gothic statues from the Buda Royal Palace

On this exhibition can be seen the emblematic Gothic sculptural relic uncovered in 1974 during the excavation by László Zolnay.

Budapest – light and shadow The capital's 1000‑year history

The basic concept of the exhibition is defined by the image of a city that has been repeatedly destroyed over the centuries and then rebuilt. The “light and shadow” in the title refers to the building, flourishing periods of the capital, the wars and natural disasters that interrupted them, and the successive layers of reconstruction after destruction.

The royal palace – the castle of culture The history of the Buda Castle from 1686 to the present

The exhibition presents the early modern palace’s nearly three‑century history with architectural plans, photographs, adventurous memories of the palace’s former decoration and furnishings that have been preserved, and reconstructed room details.

The Hungarian‑Anjou coat of arms silk tapestry

The display shows, in an interactive way, the throne tapestry uncovered during archaeological research on the former Teleki Palace site, together with other artifacts found with it.

Buda, “the seat and throne of royal dignity” The medieval royal palace

The exhibition on the lower level of the BTM Castle Museum presents the history and restored spaces of the medieval royal palace.

Temporary exhibition

To the galaxy! Hungary and the Space Age I 1957–1983

The exhibition examines, in the space age that began in 1957 with the first Sputnik launch, the transformation of science and technology and the traces of a new relationship between imagination and reality in various fields of culture. Although the yet‑to‑be‑discovered cosmos was imagined as standing above nations, the display examines all this from a single point on Earth, from a single perspective, in the context of Hungary.