He was born on August 5, 1960, in Novi Sad (Újvidék), in the southern Bačka region.
Between 1979 and 1985, he studied archaeology at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. As a student of Professor István Bóna, his main specialization was the archaeology of the Migration Period; from his third year onward, he also pursued specialized studies in medieval history under the supervision of Professor András Kubinyi. As a university student, he was a member of the Eötvös Collegium, and the years spent there have had a lasting influence on his intellectual outlook.
In his 1984 thesis, he analyzed the medieval clay cauldron; this work was published in German in 1986.
He passed his final state examination in January 1985.
Between 1987 and 1988, he processed—within the framework of a small monograph—the unfortunately very fragmentary source material concerning the history and construction of the Cistercian monastery of Bélakút / Pétervárad (Petrovaradin).
Between 1988 and 1990, he contributed to writing entries related to the southern regions and South Slavic topics for the Early Hungarian Historical Lexicon.
Between 1990 and 1994, he was one of the leaders of the archaeological rescue excavations preceding the construction of the M1 motorway on the Győrszentiván–Hegyeshalom section. He participated in the excavation of three large-scale and several smaller Avar and Árpádian-period village sections.
In March 1992, he became a research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and from 1995 he served as a senior research fellow.
In 1993, he defended his кандидат (CSc) dissertation on the archaeological remains of Árpádian and late medieval rural settlements in the Little Hungarian Plain; he was awarded the degree in 1995.
In 1998–1999, he participated in a research group that scientifically reconstructed an Árpádian-period pit-house at Szarvasgede.
From 2002 onward, he has regularly taught auxiliary disciplines in archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology of Eötvös Loránd University. He is a founding member of the Doctoral School of History at ELTE and has supervised several PhD students.
From 2003, he has been a board member of Ruralia, a European working group on rural archaeology, and from 2007 its secretary.
Since 2009, he has been a member of the Archaeological Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Between 2009 and 2012, he served as secretary of the Hungarian Society for Byzantine Studies.
In February 2014, he defended his Doctor of the Academy (DSc) dissertation titled “Archaeology of the Middle Ages in the Northern Balkan Region: Parallel and Comparative Studies”, and since May 2014 he has been a Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
In addition to his native Hungarian, he has near-native proficiency in Serbo-Croatian and is fluent in German, English, and French.
Miklós Takács has three main research areas. The first is the archaeological legacy of Avar and Árpádian-period rural settlements, including the characteristics of pit-houses and ovens, as well as the so-called “small finds” from settlement excavations, especially ceramics. The second major area is ecclesiastical architecture in 11th-century Hungary, with particular attention to its southeastern connections. The third is the medieval archaeology of the northern Balkan countries.
He has presented his ideas in 154 publications: 3 books (partly published), 3 dissertations, 27 book chapters, and 121 articles published in journals, conference volumes, and other scholarly outlets. His works have been cited 704 times in academic literature, and his Hirsch index is 14. He has presented at 24 national and international conferences where the proceedings were published, and has also given presentations at 17 additional international conferences in German, English, French, and Croatian.
Budapest, April 27, 2015
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