Karel Absolon: the man who opened the Punkva Caves (150 years since his birth)

Karel Vítězslav Absolon was born on 16 June 1877 in Boskovice, and 2027 marks 150 years since his birth. He was the grandson of Jindřich Wankel and began his career as a zoologist, collecting cave insects in the Sloup Caves. He did more for the Moravian Karst than anyone else: he was the first to call it the Moravian Karst, his expeditions of 1909 discovered the dry section of the Punkva Caves (Punkevní jeskyně) and the continuation of the Kateřinská Cave, and since 1933 it has been thanks to him that visitors can take a boat trip along the underground Punkva. He also led the excavations at Dolní Věstonice, where the Venus of Věstonice was found in 1925. He was a brilliant organiser and promoter, but also stubborn and intolerant of criticism, and his methods strike us as harsh today. He died in Brno on 6 October 1960. You can see his study in the Anthropos Pavilion in Brno.

QUICK LINKS 👦 Wankel’s grandson · 🕳️ Macocha and the Punkva · 🗿 The Venus of Věstonice · ⚖️ What he was like · 📉 The end of his career · 🧭 In Absolon’s footsteps · ❓ FAQ

Anyone who glides through the Punkva Caves by boat is following a route that one man had blasted out of the rock. Absolon was neither the first person to descend into the Macocha nor the last to make a discovery in the karst. But he was the first who managed to rally money, labourers, journalists and politicians and turn the caves into something people were writing about in London. Here is his story, with both his achievements and his shadier side.

Wankel’s grandson, who started out with beetles

Absolon was born in Boskovice into the family of Vilibald Absolon and his wife Karolína, daughter of Jindřich Wankel, a doctor from Blansko and the founder of Moravian archaeology. As a boy he went along on digs with his grandfather. After his father’s death in 1882 the family moved to Olomouc.

He studied at a grammar school in Brno and then zoology in Prague. It was not archaeology that drew him to the caves but animals. As early as the end of the 19th century he was climbing into the Sloup Caves (Sloupské jeskyně) to collect cave insects, discovering new chambers as he went. His first papers, from 1899 and 1900, deal with cave fauna and the lower level of the Sloup Caves. A tiny worm, Bythonomus absoloni, still bears his name; it lives nowhere else in the world and was described from the bottom of the Macocha Abyss. See Animals of the Moravian Karst.

In 1907 he qualified as a docent (lecturer) in physical geography, and a year later he became curator of the zoological collections at the Moravian Provincial Museum in Brno.

The Macocha and the underground Punkva

At the start of the 20th century he began calling the landscape the Moravian Karst. Until then it had been known as Moravian Switzerland. He borrowed the word “karst” from the Serbian geographer Jovan Cvijić.

From 1899 onwards one question preoccupied him above all: where does the Punkva flow between the bottom of the Macocha Abyss and the point where it emerges onto the surface? In 1901, 1903, 1905 and 1907 he led expeditions of several days into the Macocha. In 1909, while exploring the dry section of what are now the Punkva Caves, his team made the first discoveries, and work on opening them to the public began almost immediately. The same year, his expedition also found the continuation of the Kateřinská Cave, known as the New Kateřinská Cave.

From spring 1914 visitors could walk through the Punkva Caves all the way to the bottom of the Macocha. Absolon wasn’t satisfied, though; he wanted a route by water. In 1929 an artificial tunnel succeeded in diverting part of the Punkva’s water, and after further blasting the boat trip opened on 1 July 1933. You can read more about the caves in the articles Punkva Caves and Macocha Abyss.

North of the Macocha he searched for a further continuation of the underground river, but without success. Cavers did not reach what is now the Old Amateur Cave until 36 years later. The whole story of the quest to link the Macocha with the Punkva is told in Hidden Stories of the Moravian Karst.

Pekárna, Věstonice and worldwide fame

Absolon only turned to the Palaeolithic in 1918, when he catalogued the collections of Martin Kříž and Karel Jaroslav Maška, which the museum had purchased. Then he was alerted to the site at Dolní Věstonice, and he realised he could make a discovery of global importance there. He secured grants, sponsors and journalists, and wrote about the excavations in The Illustrated London News.

On 13 July 1925 the Venus of Věstonice was found at Dolní Věstonice: a ceramic figurine of a woman some 25,000 to 29,000 years old. It is among the oldest ceramic figurines in the world. Absolon wasn’t present at the find; he happened to be in France. The figurine was found by a labourer, Josef Seidl, and the excavation’s technical manager, Emanuel Dania. Even so, Absolon is still named as the discoverer to this day, because he led the excavation.

At the same time, between 1925 and 1930, he had the Pekárna Cave in the Říčka Valley excavated; see The Říčka Valley and the Pekárna Cave. He rarely took part in the digs in person, however. At Pekárna the main digger was a teacher, Rudolf Czižek; at Věstonice it was Dania. For his fiftieth birthday, in 1927, he became a professor at Charles University.

What he was like

Absolon was a tireless worker with a gift for organisation and promotion. He could inspire the public and sponsors alike. But he never studied archaeology, and he pushed his theories with unshakeable certainty and intolerance. Some of them later proved mistaken, and Czech archaeologists quietly parted company with them.

He was controversial even in his lifetime. In 1912 a pamphlet appeared with the telling title Moravský kras, aneb Dr. Karel Absolon v pravém světle (“The Moravian Karst, or Dr Karel Absolon in His True Light”), published by the Society for the Preservation of the Cave Beauties of the Moravian Karst. And the Blansko Museum states openly in its exhibition that the famous professor wasn’t always the first and that his methods were harsh. The blasting used to open up the Punkva would hardly get through in a protected landscape area today.

The end of his career

His greatest dream was a scientific institute, Anthropos, for research into prehistoric man. It did not come into being in his lifetime. In November 1938 he was sent into retirement, and during the Protectorate the museum’s new German management stopped listening to him. At the end of the war part of the Moravian Provincial Museum’s collections burned at the château in Mikulov. The museum staff had already moved the Venus of Věstonice back to Brno before that.

After the war he never returned to his projects. In 1948 an action committee struck him off the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences. In his Brno flat, however, he continued to receive young cavers and archaeologists, among them the later well-known scholars Jan Jelínek and Karel Valoch. He died in Brno on 6 October 1960 and is buried in the Central Cemetery. The Anthropos Pavilion was completed two years after his death.

In Absolon’s footsteps

• Punkva Caves: the boat trip along the Punkva that he championed, and the view from the bottom of the Macocha.
• Kateřinská Cave: the New Kateřinská Cave was discovered by his expedition in 1909.
• Sloup-Šošůvka Caves (Sloupsko-šošůvské jeskyně): this is where he began as a young zoologist.
• Pekárna Cave: freely accessible; he led the excavation from 1925 to 1930.
• Blansko Museum: an exhibition on the karst’s researchers, from Wankel to Absolon.
• Anthropos Pavilion in Brno: the Karel Absolon Memorial, with a partial reconstruction of his study. It belongs to the Moravian Provincial Museum.
• Boskovice: his birthplace.

FAQ

When was Karel Absolon born? On 16 June 1877 in Boskovice. 2027 marks 150 years since his birth. He died on 6 October 1960 in Brno.

Did Absolon discover the Punkva Caves? His 1909 expedition made the first discoveries in the dry section of the caves, and he then pushed through their opening to the public. The boat trip along the Punkva has operated since 1 July 1933.

Did Absolon find the Venus of Věstonice? He led the excavation at Dolní Věstonice, but he was not present at the find on 13 July 1925. The figurine was found by Josef Seidl and Emanuel Dania.

Who named the Moravian Karst? Absolon, at the start of the 20th century. Before that the area was known as Moravian Switzerland.

Where can I see Absolon’s study? In the Karel Absolon Memorial in the Anthropos Pavilion of the Moravian Provincial Museum in Brno.

Information verified as of 15. 10. 2026. Sources: Skořepa, H., Tůma, A.: CHKO Moravský kras šedesátiletá, Živa 6/2016; KAM po Česku 6/2022, p. 8; Wikipedia: Karel Absolon (with literature: M. Oliva, Dolní Věstonice I, MZM 2014; M. Oliva, Profesor Absolon a Němci, Dějiny a současnost 1/2015); Wikipedia: Venus of Věstonice; Moravian Provincial Museum: Karel Absolon Memorial; Blansko Museum: Images from Moravian Switzerland.

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