Yolanda Cultural Association was established in 2018 with the aim of exploring the historically prominent Egres location and making it accessible to the general public.
 
The main objective of the Association is the exploration of the Cistercian monastery of Egres, the burial place of King Andrew II and his wife Yolanda Courtenay, the archeological excavation of the royal graves, the professional examination and publication of the artifacts.
 
As a background for years of archaeological work, the Association establishes a research base in Egres, which offers the possibility of joint work and the use of the latest archaeological techniques for Hungarian and foreign archaeologist students. The discovered remains of the Árpád-Era Monastery are presented with a dedicated memorial and an exhibition on site.
 
The newly discovered artifacts can play an important role in raising awareness with the wider public the most glorious but undeservedly forgotten era of history.
 
Members of the Yolanda Cultural Association:
György Bánffy Farkas – Chairman
András Molnár – Vice president
Balázs Major – Secretary
Zsolt Vágner – Founder
 

György Bánffy Farkas is the Chairman of Yolanda Cultural Association, traffic engineer and forest technician. He studied at the Faculty of Transportation Engineering of the Budapest University of Technology. He lives in Fugad, Transylvania, where he is dealing with his family compansation matters, real estate development, forest management and heritage protection. As Chairman of the Association, his main task is to coordinate and manage the work of the project participants.

dr. Daniela Tănase is an archaeologist specializing in the early Middle Ages. Archaeologist and museologist at the Banat National Museum in Timisoara. She studied historical science at the University of Bucharest. She received her Ph.D. degree at the “Vasile Pârvan” Institute of Archeology at the Romanian Academy under the leadership of dr. Radu Harhoiu.
Her research interests include late antiquity and early Middle Ages, with special reference to the research of the settlement history and burial habits of the first millennium, particularly the metalworking of the VI-VII. centuries. Finding temples and monasteries of the Árpádian Age in the Lower Maros Valley is also one of her research topics.
She published several studies on late antiquity and the Middle Ages. As the editor of books on the beginnings of Banat archeology and the history of medieval art, she intervened in the publishment of the manuscripts of Gyula Kisléghi Nagy and Zsuzsa Móré Heitelnér.
He has participated in numerous archaeological excavations, the most important of which are: Csanád – Moránska, Gyulafehérvár – St. Michael's Cathedral and Bishop's Palace, Szilágysomlyó – Báthory Castle, Sibiu – Huet Square, Timisoara – Hunyad Castle, Timisoara – Frei – Ring road, Lugos-Deva highway.
She is the scientific leader of the archeological research of the Romanian-Hungarian research group within the Egres Monastery research program. She directs the archaeological works and dissemination of the results of the research, she is responsible for the primary conservation of the resulting architectural structures and the restoration of the artefacts.

Gábor Bertók, archaeologist and university lecturer.
He pursued his high school studies in Pécs, Hungary. He studied history and provincial Roman archaeology at Janus Pannonius University (now University of Pécs). He acquired his degree in 2005. He has worked as an archaeologist-senior museologist at Janus Pannonius Museum, Pécs since 2005. He has taught Roman archaeology, non-invasive archaeological methods, and archaeological prospection at the Institute of Archaeology, Pázmány Péter Catholic University since 2013. He has been appointed the Head of the PPCU Archaeological GIS Laboratory in 2015 an acting Head of the Department of Archaeological Prospection and Methodology in 2017.
Aside from his academic activities, he has been the leader of the Hungarian sub-projects of two EU research projects (the latest being that of ArchaeoLandscapes Europe), and he has conducted several excavations and survey projects in Hungary and numerous archaeological prospection projects abroad (Syria, Iraq, Italy, Romania).
His task in the project: GIS (geographic information system) survey

Dan Culic, Archaeologist at the Szilágy County Heritage Office. He graduated in history at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, where he is currently pursuing his doctoral studies in the field of medieval urban studies. He has participated in several archaeological researches in Szilágy and Satu Mare County, the most important of which are: Kusaj – Reformed Church, Szilágysomlyó – Báthory Castle, Krasna – Reformed Church, Mist – Pintye Castle, Szilágycseh – Reformed Church, Erdőd – Károlyi Castle. Within the research program of Egres he is a member of the Romanian archeological crew.

Tamás Czuppon archaeologist-museologist. His archaeological studies were carried out at the Department of Archeology of the Faculty of Humanities of the Eötvös Lóránd University (ELTE), specialized in Migration Period and Prehistoric archeology. He is currently a Ph.D. student at ELTE and an archaeologist-museologist at the Hansági Museum in Mosonmagyaróvár. He is specialized in the study of burial customs at different periods. He is an excavation leader archaeologist in the Monastery of Egres excavation project.

Péter Langó archeologist studied at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest where he received his Ph.D. as well. His dissertation topic was the relations between the Carpathian Basin and South-East Europe in the 10th century. He has been working at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of Archaeology. At the research program of Igris, his tasks are to prepare the framework for the research and excavation, to coordinate the work of the Hungarian team participating in the excavation, to join the excavation management, and to carry out scientific research in the field of his expertise.

Róbert Lóki, archeologist.
He graduated in the University of Pécs, at Faculty History and Roman Archaeology specialization. As archaeologist he began his work in County Baranya on the rescue excavations of the highways. Later, he was a team member of the “Danube Limes” project. There, he had his task to prepare the world heritage nomination of the Hungarian sites of the Roman Limes. From 2015 he is working in a GIS laboratory of PPKE. His roles are the team managing and supporting the non-invasive archaeological surveys on the fields, and maintaining the projects with GIS processing.

Balázs Major, archeologist. He studied at the Eötvös Loránd University in the fields of archeology, Arabism and history, while he was a student at the University of Damascus. He received his Ph.D. degree at the Cardiff University in Great Britain with his work on the medieval settlement network of the Syrian coast. Since 2000, he has been doing intensive fieldwork in the Middle East, especially in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Since 2000 he has been teaching at the Arabic Faculty of Pázmány Péter Catholic University. From 2012, he is the head of the Department of Archeology, from 2017, the head of the Institute of Archeology and the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at PPKE. In 2000, he established the Syrian-Hungarian Archaeological Mission, which has been working ever since in the world-famous Crusader Castles, among others in Margat and Crac des Chevaliers, also visited and given annuity by King Andrew II. From 2013, the research program of the Cistercian monastery in Egres, the burial place of King Andrew II., started under his leadership from the Hungarian part. His main areas of interest are Middle Eastern and European Medieval Warfare and the Late Antique and Medieval Settlement Network.

András Molnár, lawyer, member of the chamber of lawyers at Timis county. As the Vice-President of the Association, his main task is to prepare, organize, administer, and carry out the association's work on the Egres excavations and performing the related documentation tasks.

Muresan Ana-Maria Georgiana, metal restorer at the Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archeology in Bucharest. He studied in Bucharest, specializing in the restoration of metal objects. Her task at the Igris research program is to restore the metal found during the excavation.

Tibor Ákos Rácz carried out his archaeological studies at Eötvös Loránd University in 1996–2001. In his MA thesis, he examined the relationship between the medieval county system of South Transylvania and the Székely military-administrative districts. He has been working at the Ferenczy Museum Centre since 2001. From 2003 he has conducted archaeological excavations in Pest County on more than 60 different locations. He was responsible for exploring and processing the Árpád-era sites on the trail of M0 motorway and highway 4 bypass. His other important field researches are also related to the Middle Ages. In 2007–2008 he unearthed the central core of medieval Dabas on a surface extending one hectare, in 2008 and 2010 he excavated further details of the settlement, and later the ruins of its medieval church and cemetery. Between 2008 and 2012, he performed several explorations in the historic town center of medieval Vác, the most important of which was the complete excavation of a late medieval plot on the Káptalan street with a 16th century stone house and an intact cellar. The Early and High Middle Ages archaeological materials from the planned excavations of the medieval bishopric of Vác he evaluated in several studies. In accordance with the program, he has been organizing and conducting a trial and planned excavations in southern Pest County in Conquest Age (10th century) cemeteries. The most remarkable result was the excavation and documentation of an elite warrior buried with his weapons and a gilded sabretache-plate. From 2018 with his volunteer metal detectorist team he joined the Muhi battlefield exploration project, already yielding remarkable results.

Teofil Rétfalvi, archeologist. He studied medicine at the Semmelweiss University between 2002 and 2010. He began his studies at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University's Archeological Institute in 2015. In the period between the two universities, he worked on several exhibitions, was engaged in the creation and management. From 2016, he participated in several archeological missions abroad (Iraq, Syria, Italy), and worked on several excavations in Hungary. His interests lie in photogrammetric 3d modeling, noninvasive archaeological methods, geoinformatics, and anthropology. He joined the Egres project in 2016, by the first excavation, supplementing the work of the research team with 3d documentation, geodetic survey and GIS documentation.

Cecília Sándor ethnographer, anthropologist, communication consultant. She studied ethnography at the Hungarian Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology at the Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca. She graduated from the Sapientia University of Transylvania with a degree in Communication and Public Relations. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the Corvinus University of Budapest Doctoral School of Social Communication and is the President of the Department of Communication and Media Science of the National Association of Doctoral Students. Her research interests include the relationship between ethnic marketing and ethnic consumption, nation-building, and ethnic-regional identity, with special emphasis on Székelyföld. She has worked on several successful domestic and international projects, such as the EFOP TalkLab pseudo-institutional development project for smart specialization, the preparation of a collection for Miercurea Ciuc and its twin settlements, and a survey of the cultural and natural heritage of Sălaj county. Her role during the Igris excavation is communication and marketing consulting.

Dr. Miklós Takács, archaeologist, doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He obtained his degree in 2014. His dissertation topic was a parallel and comparative study of the medieval archeology in the northern Balkans. Since 1992 he has been a senior researcher at the Archeology Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Since 2015 he has been a docent at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University Institute of History. His field of expertise is early medieval settlement archeology, medieval settlement history in the southern Carpathian Basin and medieval sacral architecture.
His task of this project is to lead the excavation and to manage the processing of the artefacts.

Zsolt Vágner is the Secretary and Founder of Yolanda Cultural Association. He graduated from the Faculty of Humanities at the Eötvös Lórándt University in Budapest. He continued his Ph.D. studies at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Doctoral School of Historical Science. He has been involved as an archaeologist in the preparation of nearly a hundred settlement plans since 2003 as a freelancer, and has been coordinator of numerous excavations. Since 2014, he has been teaching archeology and heritage protection at the Department of Archeology at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, first in the Hungarian language since 2017 in English. Since 2005 he has been a member of the Syrian-Hungarian archaeological mission in Margat Castle and, since 2017, head of archaeological research and monument restoration at Crac des Chevaliers Castle. Besides all these in 2018 he led the exploration of four Lebanese medieval churches.

Dr. Lórán Vass, archaeologist. He is a specialist in Roman age, his main research domains are related to Roman bone artifacts, small finds, provincial Roman archaeology, the archaeology of Dacia and Pannonia. He studied History-Archaeology and graduated at the Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca in 2006. He earned his doctoral degree at the same institution in 2013. He has taken part in many national and international projects as a researcher. He has worked as a research assistant at Babeș-Bolyai University, later as a researcher at the Mureș County Museum, Târgu-Mureș, Romania. Between 2015 and 2017 he worked as an archaeologist at the Aquincum Museum, Budapest. In the present, he is a senior lecturer at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Institute of Archaeology. He has participated at many national and international archaeological sites (Porolissum-Moigrad; Apulum –Alba Iulia; Călugăreni, Romania; Carnuntum-Austria, Butrint-Albania, Eddeh-Jbeil – Lebanon; Aquincum – Budapest, Pilismarót Hungary) as collaborator or director. At the excavations at Igriș, he is working as a fellow archaeological field director.

Dr. Virgil Apostol, architect, Associate Professor at the Architecture Department of the Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archeology at the Romanian Academy of Bucharest. He received his Ph.D. in historical science. Alongside his monumental research work, he has designed several archaeological, medieval or modern monument restoration plans, including the Callatis Syrian Basilica, the Hypogeum Tombs, Tomis – painted Hypogeum, Timisoara – Anjou Age Tower, Bran castle, Geogel – church of St. Michael and Gabriel. Founder member of the ARA (Architectural, Restoration and Archeology) Association, member of the Romanian ICOMOS, member of the Romanian Order of Architects and Romanian Urban Register, an architect registered by the Romanian Ministry of Culture and National Identity. His main task within the Igris program is to study architectural structures and elements.