Dungeon

In the historic downtown of Győr, in the Bécsi Gate Square, is the Várkazamata Stone Archive. The collection consists of three permanent exhibitions: the New Era Stone Archive and Horváth Lajos brick collection in the 16th‑century Sforza Court, the Roman Era Stone Archive in the Bishop’s Castle, which can be seen in a part of its late Gothic and Renaissance cellars.

Accessibility

Address: 9021 Győr, Bécsi Gate Square 5.

Opening hours: April 1 – October 31, Tuesday – Sunday: 10:00 – 18:00,

during the rest of the year by prior appointment at the Xántus János Museum (9022 Győr, Széchenyi Square 5.)

Detailed information on the Xántus János Museum website

The Sforza Court

The small but picturesque Sforza Court is reached through a roughly worked stone gate passage between two Baroque houses on the north‑west side of Bécsi Gate Square, and then through a strongly vaulted tunnel‑like entrance. The New Era Stone Archive displayed here presents the memories of the Győr Castle; here one can also see Horváth József’s brick collection.

The most valuable pieces of the New Era Stone Archive

The remnants of the former city gates form the most valuable part of the collection. A inscribed stone slab from the three‑arched Renaissance façade of the former Bécsi Gate, facing the Rába River, bears a Latin text informing that the gate was built in 1568 by Emperor II. Maximilian, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduke of Austria and Duke of Burgundy. The main ornament of the gate, the united Habsburg coat of arms, has also survived; originally on its two sides were the striped Hungarian and the lion Bohemian coats of arms, which are also pieces of the stone archive collection. The most valuable surviving piece of the Danube or Water Gate, which stood at the present‑day Dunakapu Square, is a Renaissance parapet fragment, on which we can see the droplet‑shaped bell‑like decorations of a triglyph. Among the most valuable pieces of the collection is a large beam‑framed gate wing from the White‑Tower Gate, whose outer surface bears forged‑iron plates. In 1598, when the Győr Castle was liberated from the Turks, the Hungarian and foreign liberating forces blew up the castle gate; one piece shattered, the other was thrown far by the explosion. The latter wing is shown here. Its survival is due to its being kept for centuries in the Győr Basilica as a city‑historical relic. The memory of the castle’s construction is represented by two monogrammed bricks with dates, one made in 1669 during the command of Field Marshal Raimondo Montecuccoli, the other in 1709 under General Sigbert Heister, both fired from clay mined in Sziget, like the other bricks used for the castle’s construction. At the two ends of the left‑hand cellar openings, beneath the present ground level, are two 16th‑century cannon embrasures, which were suitable for firing at the Bécsi Gate from the enemy side.

Roman Period Stone Archive

The Roman Period Stone Archive found its place in the late Gothic and Renaissance vaults opening from the entrance. The exhibited tombstones, cult images, milestones set up beside roads and altar pictures were found in the city of Győr and its surroundings. The Roman period monuments of the city were begun to be collected in the first half of the 19th century by Győr’s mayor, János Cseh (who was also an archaeologist and a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences). Near the Batthyány Square, at the southeastern tip of the old town, he created the so‑called pheasant garden, in which he set up the Roman relics that had been uncovered for research. In fact, this was Hungary’s first open‑air museum.

The Most Valuable Pieces of the Roman Period Stone Archive

From the large Roman period cemetery at Városrét – the so‑called sand mound cemetery – a Roman‑style, probably only half‑finished sarcophagus;

white marble male portrait from the third century; Acrabanis tombstone: on the tombstone uncovered in the city centre in 1788 the maker depicted a target shooting; cart‑carried tombstone: the tombstone from the Bőnyrétalap area shows a dead person being transported to the afterlife by cart; cylindrical milestone erected in the time of Emperor Caracalla in 212, found in two pieces, one from the courtyard of a house on Rákóczi Street.

On one altar stone we can read about a sacrifice made to all the gods of the Roman religion, on the tomb monument’s relief we see Heracles leading the queen of the underworld, Alcestis, the model of marital fidelity.

One relief depicts the earth goddess Tellus – the embodiment of abundance and fertility – the goddess’s attributes are indicated by the cornucopia and fruits, which a winged child pours into the goddess’s lap.

On another relief Mithras is killing the bull.

In a Western Pannonian carving workshop was made the beautiful marble tombstone which depicts the punishment of the satyr Marsyas, who played the reed pipe in a contest with Apollo and was defeated, and for his audacity the god bound him together with a Scythian slave to a tree and vividly stretched him out.