Siofok tourist information
The surroundings of Siófok was inhabited even in the neolithic period and later, in Roman times, too. In the material of the Scouting Museum (1930) established by István Molnár Roman Catholic chaplaine, one could find even a chipped hyalite collected by him on the location of Sáfránykert. In his collection there were hatchets, hoes, milling stones and jewels of the neolithic period, too. These objects were classified by Dr. Ferenc Zákonyi, honorary freeman of our town, who was a town-clerk and an outstanding researcher of the local history. (Unfortunately, this collection has been destroyed in the meantime, there are only three photos to witness its exsistence.)
The material from the Copper and the Bronze Age was preserved by Bálint Kuzsinszky for the succeeding generations. Sickles, Saw-blades, arms and jewels were found at Kiliti and in Szigeti baulk. In Vadkacsás baulk of Széplak 110 urn graves were discovered.
At the Iron Age -at around 350 B.C.- came Celtic people to this area and it was under their rule that the use of iron got wide-spread. Traces of a Celtic settlement and silver coins were found on the eastern edge of Szigeti baulk, close to the Jewish cemetery. (Dr. Károly Sági archeologist, Keszthely).
A new chapter started with the Roman occupation in the history of Trans-Danubia. In order to defend the southern military roads, establishing the Province of Pannonia, towns and roads became vitally essential.
Roman conquest got to the surroundings of our present town of Siófok in the 1st century A.D. and this is the region where the road from Sopianae (Pécs) lead across Tricciana (Ságvár) to Arrabona (Gyor). According to the notes made by Sectus Aurelius Victor in the turn of the 3rd-4th century Emperor Galerius had a dike built and made some forests cleared in order to drain the moor-land of "Lacus Pelso" -it is the Latin name for Balaton- in 292 A.D. He named the whole region after his wife, Valeria.
One can read in the deed of endowment of Tihany dated 1055, after the Hungarian conquest, i.e. in the first Hungarian sporadic literary remains of the language, the following sentence: ..."Rivulus namque, qui dicitur Fok fluens".... It means: "The small brook called Fok also springs from the lake mentioned above and is located where people can go across an ancient bridge and a ford, too...."
That is to say Fok is not mentioned as a village in the original deed of endowment despite the fact that the word "river" refers to the village. (Dr. László Erdélyi: Questionable deeds of the Abbey of Tihany, HAS, 1909.)
Sources of reference from the 11th-14th centuries mention seven settlements in the surroundings of our present town of Siófok, along Fok, or as it is called today Sió: Holovogy, Losta, Töreki, Kiliti, Fok, Igám and Jód. As to these last two settlements, only their names have remained in the name of some baulks or hills.
Based on these descriptions, one can assume that two settlements might be the same: Holovogy estate close to the ford in the ancient times and the village of Fok was settled on the same location later on. The village of Losta was settled on one of the isles of Siófok, along the brook Fok in the Age of the Arpads.
Siofok aerial map
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