Karel Absolon

(*1877–✝1960)


the venus and other findings of Dolni Vestonice, the originals at the Anthropos Institute in Brno.
Prof. Dr. Karel Absolon.

Prof. Dr. Karel Absolon is one of the two famous Czech cave scientists and archaeologists. The second one was his grandfather Jindřich Wankel.

While Karel Absolon studied in Prague, he started with speleological research in caves of the RegionMoravský Kras (Moravian Karst). He worked on the systematic mapping of the Moravský Kras, exploring the abyss Macocha and the caves Pekárna, Punkevní and Kateřinská. He also explored karstic caves in the Balkans, France, and England. On of his most demanding explorations was the KarstPropast Macocha, which is more than 135 m deep, and the exploration was extremely dangerous and difficult with the equipment of his time.

The most important work in his life was definitely the excavation of SubterraneaDolní Vĕstonice and the discovery of the venus figurine.

Absolon was rather good in what we would call today public relations. He published his results in a way, which made them very popular, and as a result he found sponsors for his work. He was so popular, in 1961, one year after his death, a new discovered cave was named after him. It is located in the Apuan Alps in Italy, at the foot of Mt. Maggiore.


Biography

16-JUN-1877 born in Boscovice.
1907 habilitation, becomes custodian of the Moravské zemské muzeum (Moravian museum) in Brno.
1924 start of excavation at Dolní Vĕstonice.
13-JUL-1925 discovery of the venus figurine.
1926 becomes professor of paleoanthropology at the Charles University in Prague.
06-OCT-1960 dies in Brno.
1961 a cave on the foot of Mt. Maggiore in the Italian Apuan Alps was discovered and named after Absolon.
2000 becomes honorary citizen of Blansko.

Bibliography