Vatican honors Hungarian excavator

Professor Győző Vörös, member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts and frequent BAR author, has received the highest pontifical award for his archaeological work at Machaerus, King Herod’s palace-fortress east of the Dead Sea in modern-day Jordan.

Machaerus is the place where Salome danced before her stepfather, Herod Antipas, and where John the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded (Matthew 14; Mark 6).

Biblical Archaeology writes that the Pontifical Academies Coordinating Council gave Vörös the 2020 Gold Medal of the Pontificate, which is reserved for the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology and the Pontifical Academy Cultorum Martyrum.

This award honors not only Vörös’s excavations at Machaerus but also his three volumes on the archaeological findings, published by Edizioni Terra Santa, in 2013, 2015, and 2019.

The council announced the award in May 2021. The Biblical Archaeology Society echoes these accolades for Vörös’s archaeological work—and for his enthusiasm in sharing his discoveries with the public. Congratulations!

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