Heinrich Wankel

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Heinrich Wankel

Heinrich Wankel (Jindřich Wankel) (born July 15, 1821 in Prague , † April 5, 1897 in Olomouc ) was a Bohemian doctor , prehistorian and speleologist . During his excavations in the caves of the Moravian Karst , he made a number of discoveries that are important for the prehistory of Moravia .

Life

Heinrich Wankel was born into a German-Czech family. His father was Damian Wankel, a German civil servant in Prague, his mother Magdalena, née Schwarz, came from a Czech family. Heinrich attended German schools and studied medicine in Prague as a student of the anatomist Josef Hyrtl . He graduated in 1847 and started working in a Prague hospital. In the revolutionary year of 1848 he took part in barricade fighting and cared for victims of street fighting. In the same year he did his doctorate in Vienna . He became Hyrtl's assistant at the University of Vienna , but the following year he moved to Moravia to work as a works doctor in the ironworks of Count Hugo Karl Eduard Salm-Reifferscheidt , a son of the industrialist and naturalist Hugo Franz Altgraf zu Salm-Reifferscheidt , to be accepted in Jedovnice .

In addition to his work, Wankel explored the caves in the Moravian Karst. He began collecting the bones of Ice Age animals, identifying them and assembling whole skeletons from the remains. In 1851 Wankel married the eleven years younger daughter of a citizen, Elisabeth. The marriage resulted in four daughters. The family lived in Blansko , where Count Salm made a house available to the doctor. Wankel was also able to use the count's miners in his excavations. Since the 1850s he published his research results in specialist journals in Bohemia , Vienna and Leipzig .

In 1867, Wankel saw pieces from La Madeleine at the World Exhibition in Paris . He recognized the similarity with his own findings in the Býčí skála cave . In the following years he intensified his activities there and he succeeded in making a number of finds that are still significant for prehistoric research today, above all the so-called "Hallstatt burial". It consists of the remains of around 40 people and numerous objects from the Hallstatt period , including a float and a bronze bull statuette. The finds brought Wankel international recognition. He became one of the first members of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory , which was founded by Rudolf Virchow in Mainz in 1869 , and he was a member of the Vienna Anthropological Society . The Danish zoologist Japetus Steenstrup described him in 1888 as the "father of Austrian prehistory".

Heinrich Wankel retired in 1883 and lost the claim to his official apartment, where his collection of over 8,000 items was located, including the human skeletons from the Býčí skála cave. The Moravian State Museum in Brno and the National Museum in Prague refused to buy. Finally, Wankel sold the collection for 12,000 guilders to the Anthropological Society in Vienna, which it gave to the Vienna Natural History Museum . It is still there today.

One of his grandchildren was the speleologist and archaeologist Karl Absolon , who continued his life's work.

Works (selection)

  • The human bone find in the Býčískála cave. Mitt. D. Anthr. Ges. Vienna I, 1871.
  • Prehistoric iron smelting and forging sites in Moravia. Mitt. D. Anthr. Ges.Wien VIII, 1879.
  • Pictures from Moravian Switzerland and its past. Vienna 1882.
  • Contribution to the history of the Slavs in Europe. Olomouc 1885.

literature

Web links

Commons : Jindřich Wankel  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Wankel, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bohemian doctor, prehistorian and speleologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH April 5, 1897
Place of death Olomouc