Otto Völzing

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Otto Völzing (born August 6, 1910 in Groß-Umstadt ; † April 28, 2001 in Neunkirchen (Saar) ) was a German geologist and archaeologist . During excavations in the Hohlenstein-Stadel in the Lone Valley in 1939, he discovered those ivory fragments in layers of the Aurignacien that were later put together as a statuette of the lion man and became famous as one of the oldest works of art known to man.

Life

From 1929 Völzing studied mathematics, geology and geography at the Ludwigs-Universität Gießen and developed a keen interest in prehistoric research early on. Together with his father Karl Völzing, he carried out excavations in the vicinity of Groß-Umstadt, where Stone Age burns had been discovered before. Here Otto Völzing found the first paleolithic stone artifacts and a larger deposit in the brick forest northeast of Groß-Umstadt in 1929 . Völzing received his doctorate on these findings in 1938.

The lion man from the Hohlenstein barn

After completing his studies, the Tübingen anatomist and paleontologist Robert Wetzel made him head of the excavation in the Stadel cave on the Swabian Alb in 1935 . Here Völzing discovered both a Neanderthal bone and a stone age site in which there were remains of at least 38 people together with animal bones and broken fragments under a layer of ash. Equally significant was the discovery of an 8,000 year old head burial at the entrance to the cave. The skulls (partly with cervical vertebrae) of a man, a woman and a child were buried here in red earth and arranged with a uniform line of sight to the southwest. The excavations were stopped on August 25, 1939 after many participants (including Völzing) received their draft order to mobilize the Wehrmacht. Due to the very careful documentation of the location and the preservation of even the smallest parts and splinters, Völzing succeeded in securing around 200 ivory fragments on the last day of the excavation, which he stored separately from the other finds in the necessary haste to secure the excavation site.

After the war, the excavations in the cave were initially discontinued. Völzing, who returned from captivity as a member of the Waffen SS late, could not find his way back to his original professional activity. Worked as a miner for some time, he retrained and became a teacher and later head of a mining preschool in Saarbrücken. Nevertheless, in 1960 he took part in excavations again with Robert Wetzel. Wetzel died in 1962 and the finds stored with him in the Institute for Prehistory and Early History in Tübingen were handed over to the Ulm Museum according to his request . During an inventory in 1969, Joachim Hahn recognized the connection between the ivory fragments and began an initial reconstruction of the statuette. Further fragments came to light through subsequent excavations and the lion man was reassembled in 1982 by Elisabeth Schmid and in 1988 by Ute Wolf. For health reasons, Völzing was never able to visit the reconstructed lion man he had excavated in Ulm . He died in Neunkirchen in 2001 .

Fonts

  • Contributions to the diluvial history of the area around Groß-Umstadt . Dissertation, University of Giessen 1938.
  • The excavations at the Hohlestein . In: Robert Wetzel / Hermann Hoffmann ( ed .): Wissenschaftliche Akademie Tübingen des NSD.-Dozentbundes, Volume 1: 1937, 1938, 1939 , Tübingen: Mohr 1940, pp. 94-101.
  • together with Robert Wetzel, Wilhelm Gieseler and Karl Keller : Die Lontalforschung: Plan u. Interim report . (Annual volumes of the Scientific Academy of the NSD Lecturer Association, Tübingen. Vol. 1, 1937–39), Tübingen 1941.
  • The prehistoric excavations in the Ziegelwald near Groß-Umstadt from 1929 to 1934 and the living conditions of people in the Middle Paleolithic , Groß-Umstadt (editor: Georg Brenner) 1984.
  • together with Herbert Kirsch, Richard Maurer and others: Technical terms of geography A – Z. Diesterweg, 1986 ISBN 3-425-05161-X .

literature

  • Karl Völzing: Reports on Paleolithic finds near Groß-Umstadt . Journal of the German Society for Geosciences, (1931) Volume 83: p. 665.
  • Peter Völzing: The Lion Man from the Lone Valley. In: Tübinger Blätter, September 2007, pp. 60–63.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kurt Wehrberger: The lion man. The ivory statuette from the Lone Valley near Ulm. In: Leif Steguweit (Hrsg.): People of the Ice Age: Hunters - Craftsmen - Artists. Praehistorika, Fürth 2008, ISBN 978-3-937852-01-0 , pp. 45–53. ( PDF download )
  2. ↑ Kurt Wehrberger, in: The return of the lion man. History - Myth - Magic. (Book accompanying the exhibition), Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2013, ISBN 978-3-799505-42-0 . P. 25
personal data
SURNAME Völzing, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geologist and archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 6, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Groß-Umstadt
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 2001
Place of death Neunkirchen (Saar)