Residents of the Starry Sky

1. During a walk in the foggy, winter forest, visitors get to know the general human and social phenomena of the past ten thousand years which relate to death. The displayed artefacts were discovered in Hajdú-Bihar county.

1. 2. In the middle of the room we created a “Shrine of Death” inside a Tree of Life, where the general symbolic forms of funerary cult are highlighted: the farewell, the journey, the recollection, and the objects that represent these.
2. 3. Ascending from the Tree of Life into the celestial sphere in the gallery, the visitor enters an Egyptian tomb. The tomb in the sky symbolically depicts one of the historically authentic images of human fantasy regarding death: the supernal dwelling of the dead, that is, the Residents of the Starry Sky.
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The exhibition presents, from a special point of view, the results of our excavations conducted mainly over the last twenty years in the collection area of the museum. Its time frame spreads from the Neolithic period to the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin. The exhibition, besides the traditions and artefacts, also presents the spiritual background and the concepts that are bonded with funerals, death, and the afterlife. The exceptional Egyptian collection of the Déri Museum connects with the archaeological exhibition at this point. Visitors can learn about this in an Egyptian noble tomb.

More information about the exhibition unit can be found on the website of the Archaeological Collection by clicking here.