Eszter Bánffy

Eszter Bánffy (* 1957 ) is a Hungarian prehistorian . She is a specialist in the Neolithic , the Copper Age and geoarchaeology . Since 2013 she has been the first director of the Roman-Germanic Commission (RGK) of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI).

Career

Eszter Bánffy completed her school education with a focus on the English and German language. She then began studying English Philology at the University of Budapest in 1975 , which she completed two years later with a bachelor's degree. In addition, she studied prehistory since 1975 , where István Bóna was the most important teacher. She completed this course in 1980 with a master's degree . In 1977 she took up further studies in Indology and Comparative Indo-European Linguistics , the most important teacher here was János Harmatta . She finished her studies in 1982 with a master's degree. In 1983, Bánffy was a DAAD scholarship holder at Heidelberg University for ten months , where she studied with Harald Hauptmann . Between 1983 and 1986 she was a scholarship holder of the Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and received her doctorate in 1988. In 1986 she became an assistant, after completing her doctorate in 1988, she worked at the Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy. In 2001 she became head of the research department there and was also visiting professor at Heidelberg University. In 2008, she held another visiting professorship at Harvard University . In 2005, Bánffy received her doctorate from the Academy, which corresponds to a habilitation . She also became a scientific advisor to the Academy in 2005, deputy director of the Archaeological Institute in 2008 and professor in 2009. In 2012 she completed a second habilitation in geoarchaeology, which she teaches as a full professor at the University of Szeged , where she has been a lecturer in this area since 2006. At the beginning of June 2013, Bánffy was elected the first director of the DAI's Roman-Germanic Commission. She is both the first woman and the first non-German to hold this position. She took office in late 2013.

Bánffy participated in various excavations in Hungary and directed many of them, including important excavations in Hahót and Zalaszentbalázs . Through her excavations in Szentgyörgyvölgy-Pityerdomb , she was able to gain important knowledge about the spread of the older Neolithic, especially about linear ceramics , in Europe. She has actively participated in more than 40 international conferences and has taught more than ten times as a guest at European and US universities. She is also active in the European Association of Archaeologists , whose board member and later general secretary she was from 2005 to 2011. Central themes of her work are the Neolithic and the Copper Age of the Carpathian Basin . She is a full member of the DAI, a member of the Society for American Archeology and, since August 2017, a corresponding member of the British Academy and curator of the Pro Archaeologia Hungariae Society .

Fonts (selection)

• Cult objects of the neolithic Lengyel culture. Connections and interpretation (= Archaeolingua. Series minor. Vol. 7). Archaeolingua Alapítvány, Budapest 1997, ISBN 963-8046-16-3 .
• A unique prehistoric figurine of the Near East (= Archaeolingua. Series minor. Vol. 15). Archaeolingua Alapítvány, Budapest 2001, ISBN 963-8046-36-8 .
• The 6th Millennium BC boundary in Western Transdanubia and its role in the Central European transition. (The Szentgyörgyvölgy-Pityerdomb settlement) (= Varia Archaeologica Hungarica. Vol. 15). Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest 2004, ISBN 963-7391-85-1 .
• with Ida Bognár-Kutzián: The Late Neolithic tell settlement at Polgár – Csőszhalom, Hungary. The 1957 excavation (= BAR International Series 1730 = Archaeolingua. Central European Series. Vol. 4). Archaeopress, Oxford 2007, ISBN 978-1-4073-0174-7 .

Web links

• Portrait on the website of the University of Szeged (English)
• Portrait on the website of the DAI
• Eszter Bánffy at academia.edu
• Frankfurter Neue Presse from January 18, 2014: The director is fascinated by the modern and historical city , by Gernot Gottwals

Individual evidence

1. ↑ New management positions at the German Archaeological Institute. In: archaeologie-online.de. DAI , June 7, 2013, accessed March 26, 2018 . 
2. ^ Elections to the British Academy celebrate the diversity of UK research. British Academy , July 21, 2017, accessed July 21, 2017 .