The Pétermonostora excavation, located on the border of Bugac, offers visitors more and more diverse contents, which in the near future will also welcome visitors with an open-air event space and a medicinal and herb garden.

In the visitor center located at the border of Bugac, the Árpád-era monastery and the life of the surrounding settlement, as well as the finds found there, are presented as a result of a series of excavations that have been ongoing for more than 10 years.

The external appearance and architectural design of the reception building, which fits into the landscape, is reminiscent of a coin found in the sand with its flat, round, notched silver side. Its shape even refers to the cloisters of the former monasteries. Due to the ground-level design of the building, accessibility is fully ensured, and as a result of its modern technological and structural solutions, its energy efficiency is also fully resolved.

The municipality of Bugac has won HUF 1.137 billion in funding from the Territorial and Settlement Development Operative Program for the first phase of its investment in a consortium with the Bács-Kiskun County Development Agency Nonprofit Kft. - the construction of the visitor center, said Mariann Tóth, the project's tender officer.

The 1,900-square-meter visitor center with reception and exhibition spaces also has a special screening room, where those interested can watch a 360-degree projection of a film that experientially presents the life of the Árpád-era monastery. As part of the project, the statues of St. Stephen, St. László, St. Elizabeth, St. Margaret and the Risen Christ were also completed and erected at the visitor center and in the ruins.

In the second phase of the development, thanks to an additional HUF 207.33 million European Union grant this year, the visitor center will be expanded to include an event space with a covered outdoor stage and a community space. In this way, the originally planned form of the building is fully realized. They will also create a garden and connect the already completed parking lot and the visitor center with a sidewalk.

Those interested can walk around the promenade around the main building and get acquainted with the perennial medicinal plants and herbs of the Árpád-era monasteries. With the help of QR codes placed on the boards containing the Hungarian and Latin names of each plant species, visitors can use their smartphones to get botanical and historical information about each plant. In the case of herbs, they can read about the possibilities of using the plants in food preparation, with recipes that can be saved, and in the case of herbs, they can gain knowledge about their active ingredients and their medicinal use.

According to the plans, in the third phase of the project, a reception building, a playground, a plant labyrinth and a lookout point will be built, and the visitor center will be connected to the ruin area by a built walkway, where statues of other Hungarian saints will line up.

Excavations began in 2010 in the vicinity of Monostordomb, located next to Bugac. An archaeological site previously unknown to science has now become unavoidable in the research of the Árpád era. Life began in the former Péterin in the 1050s, certainly as a result of a conscious royal installation. The monastery was founded between 1130 and 1140 by the prominent aristocratic family of the time, the Becse-Gergely family. The strategic location along the important military and trade route is the 12-13. by the turn of the century, it had grown into the sacred and economic center of the Danube-Tisza region. In terms of the period, the end of the life of a huge and urban settlement, clearly 1241-42. caused by the Tatar invasion.

The ongoing archaeological excavations at the site bring to the surface evidence of the outstanding wealth and great power status of Árpád-era Hungary.

MTI