Herman Ottó Museum

Address: 28 Görgey Artúr, Miskolc H-3529, Hungary

Phone: +3646-560-170

Further information:

• https://hermuz.hu/en/main-page/ (opening hours, admission prices)
• https://pannontenger.hu/en/

Pannon Sea Museum 3D virtual tour

The story of establishing the “Pannon Sea Museum”

The village of Bükkábrány, where lignite extraction – as an important element of the national economy – has been continuous since 1985, is located 25 air kilometers south-south-east from Miskolc. In the open pit mine, in July 2007, a part of the world's oldest uprightly preserved bald-cypress forest has been discovered in a depth of about 65 meters, the trees of which did not go through petrification. A total of seventeen trunks have spent the last 7 million years sealed away from light and atmospheric oxygen, ensuring that their original woody structure and organic matter hardly changed as compared to living trees. As a result of the rescue operation, which lasted nearly three months, four fossil trunks of 2.5 to 4.5 tons were transported to the Herman Ottó Museum in Miskolc, where their conservation started immediately. At the same time, recognizing the worldwide importance of the fossils, the idea of building a new exhibition building was born. The partially submerged, two-story, almost 900 m2 large "Pannon Sea Museum" exhibition building opened to the public in November 2013 with two permanent scientific exhibitions.

Permanent exhibitions

The exhibition "On Trails of Primitive Forests - The Bald-Cypress Forest of Bükkábrány and its Epoch ", which contains many interactive elements, introduces the terrestrial and aquatic flora and fauna and the geological development of the Miocene geological period (23-5.3 mya) based on the history of the ancient trees. In a separate room, visitors can view finds of the Rudabánya paleontological sites, including the remains of Rudapithecus hungaricus, which holds key importance regarding human evolution. On this pretext, the exhibition also sums up the development of mankind until the Upper Paleolithic (11600 years before today).

"The Minerals of the Carpathians" exhibition shows one thousand minerals of the known 1400 species of the 1500 km long mountain range. As a result of the methodical and regular collection expansion, the Herman Ottó Museum has one of the richest mineral collections in the country (approx. 40000 pieces). Specimens of the Carpathians from across the border are also numerous.

From 2019, the exhibition building offers a brand new exhibition called "On Earth of Dinos - MesoZOOic". It has been placed in the farmer Conference room, in its Gallery and in its Screening room. This exhibition, which is bilingual, interactive, family- and child friendly like the earlier ones, guides the visitors into the world of dinosaurs, that is the Mesozoic (251-66 mya), through its unique scenery. The thirteen independent topics (Geodynamics, Reproduction, Diet, Extinctions, Evolution of flying etc.,) do not introduce only the daily life of the popular prehistoric reptiles but also that of their plant and animal contemporaries, contained within a framing narrative about an imaginary time travelling expedition. The motto of the exhibition: "Touch it! Move it! Open up! Smell it! Play!"