Hungarian Academy of Sciences president E. Szilveszter Vizi said the synagogue, which is not just important for Hungarian Jews, but for the culture of Hungary and Europe, would be excavated with private donations and applications for state funding. He estimated the cost of the excavation and of the establishment of an Ashkenazi museum at the site would be HUF 500 million.
The synagogue, in the Castle District's Táncsics Mihály u., is five metres underground, but it is twice as large as the synagogue in Prague, Vizi said. "It would be an enormous tourist draw."
Vizi noted that the synagogue is not just a memorial of enormous value for Jewish culture, but serves as a reminder of the age of Matthias Corvinus, Hungary's "Renaissance king".
He said the project has the full backing of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
The synagogue, built in 1461 by craftsmen from the king's court, had two wings and three central pillars. It was covered with an onion dome. The synagogue functioned until 1526, when invading Turks took Buda's entire Jewish population back to Turkey. The roof caved in several years later, and it took returning Jews until 1541 to make the synagogue usable again. However, as there were too few skilled craftsmen in Buda during the Turkish occupation to make a new dome, a wood-beam roof was placed on the synagogue.
When Buda was retaken from the Turks in 1686, advancing soldiers burned the synagogue and buried all of those who had fled there for safety under its crumbling walls. The new residents of the city then completely buried what was left of the building.
The remains of the synagogue were rediscovered - by accident - in 1964. The floor of the synagogue was found to be 4.4 metres underground, surrounded by the four-metre-high remains of the walls as well as the synagogue's central pillars.
Source: Múlt-kor
