Karel Absolon Award for the Popularisation of Archaeology
The Golden Mammoth Award is a joint project of three prominent archaeological institutions in the Czech Republic. The partnership of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, the Moravian Museum and the Department of Archaeology and Museology of the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, combines research, educational and collection-forming objectives of archaeology as well as the academic, university and museum environment. The partnership aims to motivate archaeologists on all levels of archaeological science and in all professional institutions to develop creative and attractive popularisation activities that legitimise the irreplaceability and social merit of archaeology in the modern world in the eyes of the lay public.
Together, we organise the traditional contest for the Golden Mammoth Award that highlights the best popularisation results in the given year. The basic principles of the contest are an inseparable part of its statutes. The detailed rules for the current year are regularly updated and published together with the annual contest opening.
The Golden Mammoth prize is awarded in three categories, each guaranteed by one of the partners. The three best results in each category receive awards. The first prize in each category has a financial reward.
Award ceremony for the second year of the Golden Mammoth Award
The authors of the winning project of the academic award, “Bohemia-Bavaria ArchaeoCentre. To protect and share the common cultural space.” Photo by F. Fojtík, Moravian Museum.
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2021
Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the projects registered in 2020 and 2021 will be assessed together in the spring of 2022. The projects entered for the 2020 year are still valid; please do not resubmit them as they will be automatically included in the 2021 contest.
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2020
Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the projects registered in 2020 and 2021 will be assessed together in the spring of 2022. The projects entered for the 2020 year are still valid; please do not resubmit them as they will be automatically included in the 2021 contest.
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2019
Based on experience from the pilot year, the statutes and conditions of the contest were modified and clarified as of 1 December 2019.
It is for the contestant to prove the quality of the project in all the assessment criteria. Please allow the committee to assess the qualities of your project from the work attached to it, which may be photographic, audiovisual, etc. Submit your project in time, so that the committee has the opportunity to see it on-site if necessary.
See the submitted and winning projects in 2019 and the photo gallery from the award ceremony.
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2018
The award ceremony for the first year of the Golden Mammoth Award took place on 1 May 2018 in the Anthropos Pavilion in Brno-Pisárky on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Anthropos mammoth. The mammoth was made through the endeavours of Karel Absolon in 1928 for the Contemporary Culture Exhibition that took place on the Pisárky exhibition grounds. After the extraordinary success of the Humans and their Lineage pavilion, it was decided that it would be exhibited permanently so the mammoth was moved to the nearby Pisárky Park. As the original model was lost during the war years, a new 3.5-metre high model was built in 1969. A model of a baby mammoth was added in 2003 and in 2008, the collection of poems “Walking with a Mammoth” was dedicated to the mammoth.
The idea to connect the contest to the exhibit on display in Brno honours the tradition, founded by Karel Absolon in Moravia, of the popularisation of archaeological research and archaeological science. The award was also symbolically dedicated to him.
See the submitted and winning projects in 2018 and the photo gallery from the award ceremony.
