Moravian Museum Research Articles

Dějiny výzkumu v jeskyni Švédův stůl v Moravském krasu

This article provides an overview of the published archaeological, geological, anthropological, and paleontological research that has been undertaken at Švédův stůl Cave at Ochoz u Brna in the southern part of the Moravian Karst. Most of these excavations took place from the end of the 19th century to the present and have already been described in the literature; however, to date, there has been no comprehensive review for an English-speaking audience. The authors focus on the excavations of Bohuslav Klíma between 1953–1955 and the discovery of a Neanderthal’s mandible by the student Karl Kubasek in 1905, and the circumstances under which this find entered the collections of the Moravian Museum in Brno. The article also includes, for the first time ever, photographs from the Bohuslav Klíma archive documenting his excavations in the cave in the 1950s. This documentation was also used to place the test pits excavated in front of the cave in 2019 by an international research team in the spatial framework of Klíma’s excavations.

Great Moravian jewellery and its presentation in exhibitions

Ever since the first pieces of Great Moravian jewellery were found in early medieval burial grounds, which began to be intensively and extensively explored mainly in Moravia after 1948, it was clear that these were not only elite goods related to the highest social class in Great Moravia of that time, but also exhibition objects that bear the hallmark of exclusivity. Their artistic beauty, the expensive material from which they were made, as well as the craftsmanship with which they were created, were and still are a sure guarantee for the exhibitor that they will interest the public in some way. The paper focuses mainly on large exhibition events, which from the 1960s presented Great Moravian jewellery not only to the Czech, but also to the foreign audience. At the same time, it briefly outlines the future, which is connected with presentation of these exceptional archaeological finds, and which is in the hands of the Moravian Museum in Brno.

A new find of a Great Moravian decorated battle-axe head from Znojmo-Oblekovice

The article deals with a new find of a decorated battle-axe head, which can be dated with a high degree of certainty to the Great Moravian period. The axe head was found in the Oblekovice cadastre in Znojmo in 2021 during metal detecting and handed over to the South Moravian Museum. Subsequent prospection of the site surroundings did not reveal any other related finds. In Moravia, the Oblekovice axe head is unique for its decoration.

Finds of Byzantine Coins in the Collection of the Moravian Museum. A Contribution to the Completion of the Register of Byzantine Coins in Moravia / Znaleziska monet bizantyńskich w kolekcji Morawskiego Muzeum Krajowego. Przyczynek do uzupełnienia rejestru monet bizantyńskich na Morawach

Finds of Byzantine coins on the territory of Moravia are generally rare, and those kept in the numismatic collection of the Moravian Museum (Brno, Czech Republic) are far from numerous. The collection contains 11 individual finds and one small hoard from a period spanning the 5th to the 13th century. They were acquired mostly during the 1950s–1970s. Some of the finds have been already published in the past, others remain unpublished or only brief information without a detailed description has been published. The aim of this paper is the completion of the information on finds of Byzantine coins on the historical territory of Moravia or, as the case may be, a more precise determination of the discovered coins.

Hans Bruckmüller: Mahlerův současník a osobnost německého hudebního života na Moravě

The research of the Hans Bruckmüller's (1862–1940) estate in the Department of the History of Music of the Moravian Museum has enabled this study to elaborate and describe in more detail the life and work of this composer (pupil of Franz von Suppé and Anton Bruckner), zither player, pianist, choirmaster and organizer of German musical life in Jihlava, Litovel and Brno. Bruckmüller is also widely remembered as one of the Jihlava contemporaries of the young Gustav Mahler. In Bruckmüller's estate, a typescript of recollections of Gustav Mahler was newly discovered, which Bruckmüller read on the Brno Radio on 3 January 1931. It also reflects on Bruckmüller's and Mahler's joint music-making and Mahler's relationship towards women at that time.

Endogean and cavernicolous Coleoptera of the Balkans. XXIV. Amauropini (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae) from the collection of the Moravian Museum in Brno.

The status of Amauropus lobipes Reitter, 1918 and Protamaurops bicarinata (Reitter, 1918) is confirmed based on the holotypes housed at the Moravian Museum in Brno, Czech Republic. Both species are redescribed, photographed, and the aedeagus of Amauropus lobipes is illustrated. A checklist of Amauropini species in the Moravian Museum is given.

The Protectorate-period roots of the Brno branch of the Institute of Archaeology

When Karl Hucke assumed the directorship of the Moravian Museum including its Department of Prehistory in November 1941, he very soon attempted to transfer administrative authority over the archaeological heritage care in Moravia from the Institute of Archaeology in Prague in order to take control over Moravian Prehistoric research and to emancipate it from the influence of the Reichsdeutsche archaeologists active in Bohemia. His proposal presented in December of 1941 to the Office of the Reichsprotektor and to the president of Moravia (governor) conceived the transfer of the competences of the Institute of Archaeology to the Department of Prehistory of the Moravian Museum. However, the Reichsprotektor office had no interest in decentralisation of archaeological heritage protection and, therefore, Hucke’s proposal ended up being substantially reworked. Based on an idea of a Reichsprotektor office staffer, Wolf von Both, the Brno branch of the Institute of Archaeology was established in the summer of 1942 as a de facto detached institution with some autonomy. Its establishment was therefore a compromise between Hucke’s original plan and the effort of maintaining the central role of the Institute of Archaeology as stipulated by the 1941 Government decree on archaeological heritage.

Nové nálezy kovových a skleněných předmětů z mladší doby železné na jižní Moravě. Přínos občanské spolupráce k poznání laténského osídlení na Břeclavsku

The ‘Celts Beneath the Pálava Hills’ exhibition was installed at the end of the summer of 2020 at the Regional Museum in Mikulov. The museum prepared the exhibition in cooperation with the Moravian Museum and the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno. Along with other unique exhibits, an assemblage of 70 metal artefacts stored in Dolní Dunajovice in the study collection of the Research Centre for the Roman and Great Migration periods of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, was chosen to be displayed for this event. The article presents 47 small artefacts made of copper alloys, 18 coins and five glass artefacts from 17 cadastral units, which enriched the exhibition with a variety of characteristic LT C and D1 finds. They do not form a complete collection, as their common denominator is that they were found in 2011–2017 solely by metal detectorists working together with the archaeologists from the workplace where the finds are stored. These never-before-published artefacts and the qualities of each deserve to be presented both to the public and the professional community. These artefacts include finds which, in the context of the Late Iron Age of south Moravia, are unique objects (including two bronze figurines) that are significant contributions to the clarification and differentiation of the topography of the La Tene settlement structure in the studied region.

Josef Ryš (1879–1960), pedagogue, mineralogist, collector and his collection of minerals in the National Museum in Prague

Josef Ryš (* 1879, † 1960) was a high school professor at the Real School in Jevíčko, a prominent local researcher - mineralogist and head of the local physical education unit Sokol. Between 1909 and 1958, he published a total of 11 works on the geological and mineralogical conditions of the greater Jevíčko area. He has collaborated with important institutions, such as the Moravian Museum in Brno, Masaryk University in Brno, Charles University in Prague and the National Museum in Prague. He has built a quality collection of Czech and world minerals, of which a total of 913 pieces are stored in the collection of the National Museum in Prague. From this collection, 65 minerals were selected for the new permanent mineralogical exhibition of the National Museum.

Helfert’s Theory of a Music Museum (“Musical Archive”)

The article is devoted to one of the first modern conceptions of a music museum within the framework of Czech or Czechoslovak ideas on musical museology. This conception originated with the musicologist Vladimír Helfert. The article follows the development of Helfert’s conception, which was realised primarily in the form of the Musical Archive of the Moravian Museum. The article also identifies the constant features of that conception. Helfert conceived of a music museum (“musical archive”) as a basic institution facilitating work on musical historiography, meaning the compiling, cataloguing, and protecting of musical artefacts (especially two-dimensional artefacts), and their presentation of to the expert community.

New genus and new species of the subfamily Pharsalinae (Hemiptera: Ricaniidae) from Eastern Brazil

Ricamela lata gen. et sp. nov. is described from the state of Bahia in Brazil based on a single female from L. Melichar’s collection in the Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic. The new genus belongs to the subfamily Pharsalinae Gnezdilov of the family Ricaniidae Amyot et Serville and represents the third genus of this group. The systematic position of the American Ricaniidae are discussed. A key to genera of Pharsalinae is given.

Janáček's the Makropulos Affair

Janáček's the Makropulos Affair John Tyrrell Leoš Janáček. Věc Makropulos = Die Sache Makropulos = The Makropulos Affair. Libretto by Leoš Janáček. Edited by Jiří Zahrádka, with performance suggestions by Sir Charles Mackerras. Vienna: Universal Edition, 2017. [Preface in Ger. and Eng., p. xi–cxxiii; characters & orchestra, p. [3–6]; score, p. 7–513; ISMN 979-0-008-08753-0; ISBN 978-3-7024-7424-9; pub. no. UE 36511. €89.95.] Only two of Janáček's operas were published in full score during his lifetime: Její pastorkyňa (Jenůfa) and Kát'a Kabanová. Z mrtvého domu (From the House of the Dead) came out two years after his death and, like Jenůfa, in an edition reorchestrated and revised by others. One of the striking achievements in recent years of Janáček's publisher, Universal Edition, has been the systematic preparation of new, scholarly editions of their Janáček stock in full score and study score, together with revised piano-vocal scores and newly-prepared orchestral parts. The "Brno version (1908)" of Jenůfa, stripping the score of Karel Kovařovic's revisions and reorchestration, appeared in 1996, and was followed by critical editions of Janáček's first opera Šárka (piano-vocal score only, 2002) and Příhody lišky Bystrou šky (The Cunning Little Vixen, 2010), both edited by Jiří Zahrádka, curator of the Janáček Archive in the Mora vian Museum Brno. Zahrádka's considerable editorial experience (he is also the editor of Glagolská mše (The Glagolitic Mass) and Osud (Fate) for Bären reiter, and most of Janáček's chamber and solo piano music (for [End Page 146] G. Henle) is well displayed in his superb edition of Věc Makropulos (The Makropulos Affair). Makropulos, Janáček's eighth and penultimate opera, was his most ambitious. The musical language moved up a notch from the easy lyricism of its predecessor, The Vixen, to be one of the composer's most gritty scores, its modernist idiom winning approving words from Theodor Adorno. Working from a ready-made text was not necessarily an advantage. Karel Čapek, the author of the successful stage play on which the opera is based, himself described it as "over-garrulous," and although Janáček by then was an experienced and fearless adapter of stage plays, it needed especially heavy cutting to turn it into a serviceable opera libretto. Putting over musically the long legal explanations in act 1 was a problem, as was the final act, where Janáček com-pressed Čapek's two scenes into one. He didn't get this right the first time, and found himself jettisoning acres of score during the revision of act 3. Conductors usually find Makropulos the most difficult of all Janáček's operas to conduct. The first act is a particular challenge, one of the longest continuous spans in a Janáček opera without the diversion of set pieces as in Jenůfa or even From the House of the Dead. Janáček nevertheless threw himself enthusiastically into composing his new opera, which he began on 11 November 1923, having signed off The Vixen on 10 October 1923. The single month that separates Makropulos from The Vixen suggests a composer full of confidence and just itching to begin, not even waiting until after his Christmas break, as in the previous operas. As he got toward the end, he began mentioning the work excitedly to his friend Kamila Stösslová. But this does not tell the whole story. There were occasions in between when he refused to discuss the opera and when, it seems, he was doing almost anything but compose Makropulos. During the composition of Kát'a Kabanová (1920–21) Janáček retired from the directorship of the Brno Conservatory, giving him much more free time for composition; he also moved over to a systematic and streamlined method of writing operas. His new routine of composing operas was based on intensive bursts, completing an act at a time, followed by a recreative break such as a trip to Prague, a stay at the Moravian spa of Luhačovice, or at...

The jumping plant-lice of Laos (Hemiptera: Psylloidea)

The jumping plant-lice of Laos are reviewed based on material collected during recent expeditions by the Moravian Museum (1997–2011), the Naturhistorisches Museum Basel (2003–2012) and the Seoul National University (2012–2015). To date, only three psyllid species, viz. Diaphorina citri, Heteropsylla cubana and Pseudophacopteron tuberculatum, have been recorded from Laos. In the material at hand, 49 species (of 6 families and 27 genera) are represented. This collection includes the three previously reported species and 22 species reported for the first time from Laos. Twenty-four species are identified only to genus due to insufficient material. The following nomenclatorial changes are formally proposed: Insnesia drypetisuga (Li, 2004), comb. nov. (from Auchmerina); Insnesia longitaenialis (Li, 2011), comb. nov. (from Auchmerina); Insnesia maculosa (Fang & Yang, 1986), comb. rev. (from Auchmerina); Insnesia yunnanensis (Li, 2011), comb. nov. (from Auchmerina); Trioza maculata (Yang, 1984)=Triozopsis ruiliensisLi, 2011, syn. nov.

Catalogue of type specimens of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) deposited in Czech museums

Type specimens of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) deposited in natural history museum collections in the Czech Republic are catalogued. Altogether, we list types of 19 extant taxa housed in the Department of Entomology, National Museum, Prague; the Department of Entomology, Moravian Museum, Brno; the Department of Natural History, Museum of the Highlands, Jihlava; and the Department of Natural History, Silesian Museum, Opava.

A New species ofHenicocephaloidesfrom Eastern Madagascar (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Reduviidae)

Abstract Henicocephaloides raunoi sp. nov. (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Reduviidae: Physoderinae) is described based on a single male specimen from Eastern Madagascar, which is deposited in the collection of the Moravian Museum, Brno. The newly described species is illustrated and compared to Henicocephaloides fulvescens Villiers, 1962. A revised generic diagnosis is also provided.

The collection of Anabaptist (Hutterite) ceramics in the Moravian Museum in Brno

The Anabaptists, who started to settle in Moravia after 1526, brought with them the production of faience. They were concentrated mainly in the demesnes of Southern Moravia (current districts of Břeclav, Hodonín, Uherské Hradiště and Znojmo), but after 1620 as non-Catholics, the Anabaptists had to leave. They went mostly to the neighbouring Kingdom of Hungary, today the western region of Slovakia where they continued to produce faience. After the Anabaptist community disintegrated in the last quarter of the 17th century, the production of faience was taken over by individual craftsmen. The Moravian Museum in Brno holds one of the most representative collections of Anabaptist faience in the Czech Republic. Its origin dates back to the early years after the foundation of the Francis Museum, the predecessor of today’s Moravian Museum. At present, it comprises around 250 items.

Studies of Madagascan Ptiliidae (Coleoptera) 4: The genus Bambara including eight new species and the first account of blindness and aptery in the genus

This is the fourth report detailing Ptiliidae collected from forest litter by the Moravian Museum (Brno, Czech Republic) expeditions to Madagascar 2010-2013. Eight new species are described and figured: B. edwardi sp. n.; B. lanquidula sp. n.; B. merina sp.n.; B. opaca sp. n.; B. problematica sp. n.; B. secubita sp. n.; B. thomasi sp. n. and B. verecunda sp. n., and new data recorded for B. dybasi Johnson. Problems concerning the genital morphology and species determination of the parthenogenetic members of the genus are discussed in relation to the findings, and the first blind and apterous species reported.A key to the known species from the island is provided.

Name typification of Umbelliferae taxa described by Joseph Franz Freyn

Thirty-three new species and 12 new infraspecific taxa of the Umbelliferae have been described by Bohemian botanist Joseph Franz Freyn (1845–1903). The names of these taxa are typified, in most cases by material preserved at the Herbarium of the Moravian Museum (BRNM) in Brno. The names of nine species proposed by Freyn are accepted in the present-day nomenclature of the family; five others are the basionyms of presently accepted names. Type material from BRNM has enabled rehabilitation of the specific status of Angelica brachyradia Freyn from Bosnia and Pastinaca dentata Freyn & Sint. from Turkey. A new nomenclatural combination is proposed (Taeniopetalum urbani (Freyn & Sint. ex H. Wolff) Pimenov). Notes on the distribution of the taxa concerned are added.

Studies of Madagascan Ptiliidae (Coleoptera) 3: The genus Acrotrichis including twenty seven new species

This is the third report detailing Ptiliidae collected from forest leaf litter by the Moravian Museum (Brno, Czech Republic) expeditions to Madagascar 2010-2013. After completion of the first draft, which identified 16 new species, more Madagsacan Acrotrichis, collected at earlier dates, were found in the Natural History Museum in London (BMNH). These included 17 unpublished new species determined by Colin Johnson in 1969, 7 of which proved to be the same as those in the Czech material. The decision was taken, therefore, to broaden the scope of the report to include all the mounted Madagascan material in the Museum and to use Johnson's ms names to avoid potential future confusion. 27 new species are described and figured: Acrotrichis absona sp. n.; A. barclayi sp. n.; A. bibula sp. n.; A. boothi sp. n.; A. clareae sp. n.; A. colini sp. n.; A. cuspida sp. n.; A. difficilis sp. n.; A. exigua sp. n.; A. hammondi sp. n.; A. heissi sp. n.; A. hova sp. n.; A. impressa sp. n.; A. lacrimosa sp. n.; A. lauta sp. n.; A. loganovi sp. n.; A. magnifica sp. n.; A. malitiosa sp. n.; A. obscura sp. n.; A. perexigua sp. n.; A. perfida sp. n.; A. strenua sp. n.; A. subafricana sp. n.; A. tampoketsae sp. n.; A. terminalis sp. n.; A. truncata sp. n. and A. tuberosa sp. n., and new data recorded for six others: a. africana Johnson, A. africanoides Johnson, A. cursitans (Nietner), A. discoloroides Johnson, A. minuscula Johnson, and A. superbioides Johnson. New criteria for assessing speciation in Acrotrichis are suggested, the definition of subgenera discussed and a key to all the known species from the island provided.

Studies of Madagascan Ptiliidae (Coleoptera) 2: the genus Ptenidium including three new species .

This is the second report detailing Ptiliidae collected from forest leaf litter by the Moravian Museum expeditions to Madagascar 2010-2012. 3 new species are described and figured: Ptenidium azafady sp. n., P. lambdai sp. n., and P. tanalai sp.n., and the criteria for assessing subgeneric status discussed.