Medieval soldier armed with axe and spear stands guard in a staircase tower within northern Hungary’s medieval Hollókő Castle - one of many costumed mannequins used by modern custodians to recreate the atmosphere of the era when the fortress was built, the late 1200s or 13th century.
Hollókő, Nógrád County, Hungary: a medieval soldier holding an axe and spear and wearing a cloak, tunic, trousers and a flexible chain mail hood or coif stands guard within a staircase tower of Hollókő Castle - one of numerous waxwork figures deployed by modern custodians to recreate the ambience of the late 1200s, the era in which the fortress was built. The castle, founded by the noble Kacsics family, was among several built to stop a second invasion by the Tatar and Mongol forces who had recently devastated large swathes of Eastern and Central Europe. It stands in a prime strategic position on the summit of 365m-high Szár-hegy (Stalk Mountain or Hill) in Hungary’s Cserhát northern uplands. Hollókő was enlarged and strengthened after it was built with the addition of new defensive walls, bastions and booby trap pits known as trous de loup or wolf traps, designed to capture unwary attackers. Over more than 700 years, its turbulent history included battles, sieges and occupation by local warlords, Hussite rebels, Angevin soldiers, Ottoman Turks, and forces loyal to the King of Poland. Centuries of siege warfare left its mark on the castle, which was partly demolished in the 1700s by a Hapsburg emperor and then left to decay. It was robbed of much of its building stone and lay in a derelict state until the 1960s, the start of a restoration programme that was to last more than 30 years. The fortress and the ethnographic village below it, built by the minority Palócz or Palóc community, are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Hollókő is one of Hungary’s top tourist attractions.
Size: 3920px × 2608px
Location: Hollókő, Nógrád County, Hungary.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: 13th, 1552, armed, armour, armoured, attraction, axe, captured, castle, castles, century, chain, cloak, coif, costume, county, cserhá, , family, figure, fortifications, fortress, fortresses, guard, guardsman, hapsburgs, heritage, hill, hills, holding, holloko, hollóő, hood, hungarian, hungary, hussite, interior, invasion, kacsics, kerr, landing, lone, mail, mannequin, medieval, military, modern, mongol, mongols, noble, northern, ottoman, rebels, sentry, site, soldier, spear, staircase, stalk, standing, szá-hegy, tartar, tartars, tatar, tatars, terence, tourism, tourist, tower, tunic, turks, unesco, uniform, waxwork, world, ógrá
