Wooden Shingle Museum

The Velemér Sindümuseum is a privately held nonprofit folk collection that presents the folk art heritage of Őrség, with particular focus on creations that carry symbols. The museum can be visited only after prior registration.

History

The museum was founded by Géza Varga. At first the exhibition was only periodically viewable as part of the Őrség “Open Gates” event.

A hundred years ago the house that houses the exhibition was inhabited by Sándor Tóth gerencsér (Ōrség potter), who

also made the roof tiles, including the small tiled bird that gives its name to the local lodging and can be seen on the house’s eaves.[forrás?] The folk material marking the beginning of the Sindümuseum developed in the 1990s from the remaining objects of the former Tóth gate house.[forrás?]

From the roof covering of the buildings on the gate about a hundred painted sindü were recovered, and another hundred were received from Velemér residents by the museum founder. Together with additional items found during research camps supported by the Institute of Textual Studies, a folk material gradually accumulated that justified the exhibition of the collection. This was especially needed because the genre of painted sindük is essentially unknown to Hungarian folklore studies (with the exception of a few articles by county museum director Zoltán Nagy).

Objects

The word “sindü,” which gives its name to the museum, is the local term for shingle,[forrás?] but it does not refer to slate shingle, rather to homemade roof tiles. From the essentially unknown painted sindük in folklore studies, a few dozen can be seen in the Sindümuseum, and several hundred sindük appear in drawings or photographs.

Besides the sunduk, the permanent exhibition mainly displays old and new pottery made by the Örségi potters. The exhibition is enriched by some of the most beautiful vessels from the Potters' Days held annually at Magyarszombat, including works by masters such as Imre Czibor of Alsópáhok and Gábor Farkas of Békéscsaba, in addition to the Örségi potters.

The museum exhibits an authentic copy of the region’s earliest known fired clay object, the 7,500‑year‑old Szentgyörgyvölgy cow statue.

In addition, a few pieces of furniture and other artworks enrich the permanent exhibition: for example, some personal items of Gyula Gyenese Botfaragó, a woodcarver who lived in this house fifty years earlier, and photographs of his works can be viewed.

Museum programme

The Sindüm Museum maintains informal working relationships with the Örszentpéter Landscape Museum, the Körmend Castle Museum, and the Savaria Museum in Szombathely. A diploma thesis has already been written about the material of its exhibition.

The museum’s primary task is to map, understand and present the folk cultural heritage of Örség and, more generally, of Hungarian folk heritage. A secondary aim is to present the culture of the people who lived here in the Stone Age.