Isidor Franz Engl (1932 to 1918)
Hallstatt native Isidor Franz Engl joined the saltworks in 1850, where he trained under J. G. Ramsauer. As a talented artist, his main tasks were in the field of documentation. Today many of his drawings of Hallstatt and the surrounding area still exist. As well as overseeing excavation work at the Hallstatt burial site, he was also responsible for excavations at the Lahn site and a further site on the Salzberg mountain. Furthermore, Engl played an important role in the Hallstatt Museum Association and the Hallstatt Museum.
Childhood and education
Excavations for the Regional Museum of Upper Austria
Excavations for the Royal and Imperial Natural History Museum in Vienna and the Museum Association
Landscape drawings and paintings
The work of the Hallstatt Museum Association
Childhood and education
Born in 1832 in Hallstatt, Engl lost both parents at a very early age, and was sent to the Frey Orphanage in Gmunden/Weyer. After primary school, he was admitted to the monastery school, and the following years were decisive for the young man. Engl was taught geometry, trigonometry, architecture, field measuring and drawing of construction plans. In 1850, he took service with the saltworks and the forestry authority. Engl was further trained in mining by Johann Georg Ramsauer, who had already been conducting excavations for four years at the salt mine. As a young collaborator, Engl repeatedly took part in excavations, mainly involved in the documentation of grave finds.Excavations for the Regional Museum of Upper Austria
After pursuing several occupations in different parts of the Salzkammergut, Isidor Engl returned to Hallstatt in 1862 and became inspector at the pan house in the Lahn. From 1871 to 1877, he undertook excavations on behalf of the Museum Francisco-Carolinum in Linz in the now famous cemetery in the Hallstatt High Valley. Although a number of graves had been unearthed between the last Ramsauer excavation and 1871, they had not been recorded in detail. It was Engl who resumed the precise documentation started by Ramsauer. In addition to Ramsauer’s notes, Engl’s documentations provide the basic information on the old Hallstatt excavations.Excavations for the Royal and Imperial Natural History Museum in Vienna and the Museum Association
Studies were performed jointly with the Vienna Imperial and Royal Court Museum of Natural History in 1877, 1878 and 1886. The number of burials unearthed increased by 191, 85 of which were cremation graves. In 1884, Isidor Engl undertook archaeological work on behalf of the Hallstatt Museum Association, founded in the same year. Further excavations were conducted between 1889 and 1891 up in the High Valley, down by the river Lahn, and on the mountains of Sommerau-, Solinger- and Steinbergkogel in 1894, at the local train station in 1895 and at the Hallerbauergrund in 1900 and 1907.Landscape drawings and paintings
Engl’s drawings and paintings of Hallstatt and its surroundings are as important for the history of the village as are his excavations records for scientific purposes. Instructed by the painter Anton Schrödl, he developed his artistic skills and made thousands of sketches and paintings of his home village.The work of the Hallstatt Museum Association
Isidor Engl was strongly committed to the Hallstatt Museum Association, whose curator he was in 1891 and part of 1892, and permanently from 1893 until his retirement in 1909. He encouraged the association’s activities and established a museum in the village, quite notable for the time. Engl also started the systematic inventory of the finds and in 1904 presented the first catalogued guide to the Hallstatt village museum. Isidor Engl died in December 1918 in Hallstatt. Apart from Johann Georg Ramsauer, he is the foremost early researcher into the Hallstatt cemetery, and for scholars, he is as eminent as 'his' first ‘Bergmeister’. Together, they have contributed to the fame of Hallstatt village and of archaeology, then a nascent discipline.(Kern, A. – Loew, C.)
