Otto Seewald

Otto Seewald (born April 9, 1898 in Vienna ; † June 27, 1968 there ) was an Austrian prehistorian .

Seewald studied prehistory at the University of Vienna from 1926 to 1933 under Oswald Menghin . He also pursued music theory studies (state examination for piano in 1933). He then worked as a research assistant at the Prehistoric Department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna. In 1937 he became an assistant to Menghin at the Institute of Prehistory at the University of Vienna.

Seewald carried out numerous excavations , the best known are those in Au an der Leitha, in Birgitz (Tyrol) and in Aspern near Vienna. He held his last excavation in 1949 in Böheimkirchen . In 1943 he organized the relocation and reorganization of the Mödling District Museum . Military service caused a severe, incurable nervous disease, which severely impaired his scientific activity in the last decades of his life. There are about 30 publications by him (mainly on prehistoric music and the Neolithic).

In 1961 he received the sponsorship award from the Theodor-Körner-Stiftungsfonds .

Publications (selection)

• Contributions to the knowledge of the Stone Age musical instruments in Europe. Vienna: A. Schroll, 1934.
• The bronze find from Staudach, O.-Ö. Vienna: Anthropological Society, 1937.
• The Glasinac's bird cart. Leipzig: Kabitzsch, 1939.
• The Neolithic settlement in Retz, ND. Leipzig: JA Barth, 1940.
• A Bronze Age vessel flute from Vörömart, Kom. Baranya, Hungary. Buenos Aires, 1958.
• A Neolithic vessel flute from Hochberg in Perchtoldsdorf, Lower Austria. Buenos Aires, 1965.

literature

• Herta Ladenbauer-Orel: Otto Seewald † in memory. In: Communications of the Austrian Working Group on Prehistory and Early History 19, 1968, p. 76ff. (with list of scriptures).