Karl Docekal

Karl Docekal (born September 3, 1919 in Kamegg ; † May 7, 1979 in Horn ) was a Lower Austrian local researcher and excavation technician .

Docekal learned the miller's trade, but acquired solid knowledge through self-study in various fields such as geology, mineralogy, prehistory and early history. He was considered an important person to provide information about the past of the Waldviertel . Docekal was a friend and colleague of Josef Höbarth and was appointed by him as a spiritual heir and as a supervisor for his museum.

Docekal worked as a taxidermist in the Höbarthmuseum in Horn from 1955 until his death . As an excavation technician, he was in charge of recoveries, among others in Horn, Poigen , Mödring and Stallegg . A particular success of his work was the recovery of the more than three meter long mammoth tusk from Großweikersdorf in the Weinviertel , which is still a focus of the prehistory collection of the Höbarthmuseum today. He tried completely new recovery methods.

Docekal was also engaged in experimental archeology . His functional models of Bronze Age looms and Stone Age stone drilling machines are still recognized today as plausible. They are in the Museum of Prehistory of the State of Lower Austria in Asparn an der Zaya .

The cooperation or friendship with well-known researchers of prehistory such as Christian Pescheck , Richard Pittioni , Herwig Friesinger , Karl Kromer and Hermann Maurer made the Höbarthmuseum at times a focus of Austrian prehistory research.

His work as a local researcher enabled him to fathom the history of his closer home, Kamegg. Significant finds, findings and settlements from the Mesolithic were brought about or located by him. Docekal published Fund reports from Austria in the specialist journal .

literature

• Hermann Maurer: Karl Docekal (September 3, 1919 - May 7, 1979). In: Horner sheets to the prehistory. 2/1, 1980, p. 2.
• Friedrich Berg : My years in the Höbarthmuseum. In: Erich Rabl, Anton Pontesegger (ed.): Memories of Horn. Horn 2001, p. 11ff.