Bohumil Soudský

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Bohumil Soudský (born January 19, 1922 in Plzeň , Czechoslovakia , † January 15, 1976 in Paris ) was a Czechoslovak prehistoric .

Life

Soudský's father was the director of a cooperative and a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Party. After finishing school in the Academic Gymnasium in Prague , he graduated from high school in 1941 in Latin , Ancient Greek and German . After that, despite the closure of the Czech universities as part of the special campaign in Prague by the National Socialists, he was able to start studying Hebrew , Akkadian and Biblical archeology at the Theological Institute of the Archdiocese of Prague in Strahov Monastery . In May 1945 he enrolled at Charles University in Prague, where he studied prehistory, Assyriology and religious studies.

At the suggestion of his director of studies Bedřich Hrozný , he enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1946 and then studied as Elève titulaire at the École pratique des hautes études , among others with the Assyriologist René Labat and the sumerologist Raymond-Riec Jestin. On March 10, 1948 he received his diploma in Semitic Studies .

Although he was already admitted to the École normal supérieure for 1948/49 , Soudský returned to Charles University in Prague, where he worked at the Institute for Prehistory as an assistant to Jan Filip and Jan Eisner. During his assistantship, he led the archaeological research on various Neolithic settlements, such as B. Postoloprty . After exams in prehistory and early history, Assyriology and ancient oriental history, he received his doctorate in 1950 with a thesis on the first arable cultures of the Middle East .

When, for political reasons, he was denied a planned continuation of his studies with Vere Gordon Childe at the Institute of Archeology in London and he turned down the suggestion of a three-year academic career in Leningrad , he had to quit his service at the Prague faculty at the end of 1952. On January 1, 1953, he was appointed director of the prehistoric department of the Prague City Museum, where he organized exhibitions and reorganized the museum's collection depot.

On January 1, 1957, he was appointed to a new position at the Archaeological Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences . From 1953 to 1968 he devoted himself to the investigation and publication of the Neolithic settlement of Bylany near Kutná Hora in Bohemia . In the course of a long-term research project, settlements of linear ceramics and the subsequent stitch ceramics were discovered here on an area of ​​seven hectares . For the first time, mathematical-statistical methods were used to a greater extent in the recording and evaluation of the archaeological material and computer technology was used for this. The excavations of Bylany are among the most important investigations of the European Neolithic and influenced research in this area significantly.

In 1965 he received his habilitation with a thesis on Neolithic house building. After teaching at the University of Prague since 1958, he became visiting professor at the Saarland University in Saarbrücken in 1970 and in 1971 was appointed professor of prehistory at the Sorbonne.

Since November 1972 he was officially listed as an emigrant by the Czechoslovak authorities. At the same time, they refused to legalize his stay abroad. In 1975 he was convicted in Czechoslovakia for leaving the country illegally.

Soudský was one of the first in France to deal specifically with the Neolithic. He also laid the foundation stone for a library and a documentation center on the European Neolithic. Together with Gérard Bailloud, he founded an archaeological department under the umbrella of the Center national de la recherche scientifique , which is dedicated to researching the first sedentary cultures of the Neolithic. In 1973 he and an excavation team took part in rescue excavations that took place in the valley of the Aisne , a tributary of the Oise , on the occasion of a planned canal project. A large number of Neolithic traces of settlement came to light here. At Soudský's initiative, this resulted in a long-term research project financially supported by the French state and the Aisne department , in which large-scale Neolithic settlement remains were uncovered at several sites, such as in Villeneuve-Saint-Germain and Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes . As in Bylany, the archaeological material was evaluated mathematically and statistically with the help of computer technology.

Soudský died on January 15, 1976 in the Hôpital Bichat hospital in Paris before a planned heart operation.

He was married to the archaeologist Eva Soudská (1922–2015). With her he had a son (* 1952) who became a Catholic priest and a daughter.

literature

  • Jean Claude Blanchet: Nécrologie: Bohumil Soudský , Revue archéologique de l'Oise 6, 1975, p. 2. ( Online )
  • Jean-Paul Demoule: Bohumil Soudsky , Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française 73.1, 1976, 7-10. ( Online )
  • Jean-Paul Demoule: Vingt ans après: Bohumil Soudský et la protohistoire française , In: A. Duval (Ed.), La préhistoire en France - Musées, Écoles de fouille, associations ... du XIXème siècle à nos jours. Actes du 114e Congrès national des sociétés savantes, Paris 3-9 avril 1989 , Paris 1992, 49-59.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ memorial Eva Soudská (Czech, PDF) Retrieved on February 14 2016th
  2. ↑ Ing. Ondřej Vojtěch Soudský (1952) - curriculum vitae. Retrieved February 14, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Soudský, Bohumil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak prehistory
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Plzeň , Czechoslovakia
DATE OF DEATH 15th January 1976
Place of death Paris