Skip to main content

Arturo Posnansky Biography

Arturo Posnansky

(Arturo or Arthur Posnansky; Vienna, 1874-La Paz, 1946) Bolivian archaeologist.Born into a family of Polish origin, he studied in his country and in Bavaria, and became an engineer and doctor in natural sciences.At the end of the 1890s, during the rubber rush, he worked in a river transport company, for which he made numerous expeditions and explorations through the Amazon of Bolivia and Brazil.On behalf of the company, he carried out the hydrographic survey of the Acre River.

Arthur Posnansky

When the independence movement broke out in the state of Acre in 1900, Posnansky supported the Bolivian government; During the war he made his river boat available to the authorities of La Paz, which he renamed Iris, to participate in the blockade of the Acre River.After the defeat of Bolivia in the war he decided to return to Europe.In 1903 he returned to Bolivia and established his residence in La Paz.He then began a brilliant and multifaceted scientific career as an engineer, explorer, anthropologist, archaeologist, historian, photographer, film director and owner of mines; Thanks to his scientific merits, the Bolivian government granted him Bolivian citizenship.

In the 1920s he founded the film production company Cóndor Mayku, with which he produced and directed numerous shorts, documentaries and feature films.One of the most important works produced by his production company was La Gloria de la Raza , a feature film that Posnansky himself directed in 1928.In this case, he used the cinematographic medium to disseminate his discoveries and draw attention to the monumental character of pre-Columbian civilizations.Posnansky was the central character in the film, in which, accompanied by a native as a guide, he visited the ruins of pre-Columbian cultures.

He dedicated a large part of his life to photographing, filming and studying the ruins of Tiwanaku, which, according to his investigations, was the city in which all the civilization of South America originated, a theory that was never accepted by the scientific community.He thought that the Tiwanaku culture had started in the region around 1600 BC.and lasted until 1200 AD.In 1922 he founded the Tiwanaku Archaeological Museum, which he endowed with an important collection of lithic pieces, ceramics and other samples of the Tiwanaku culture and other pre-Columbian cultures of the region.Posnansky also photographed mining towns, villages and numerous rural settlements, topics on which he published numerous books.

In the field of engineering, Posnansky focused his attention on the treatment of the waters of the highlands and their drainage to the western basin, then Bolivian territory.Around 1930 he proposed the construction of a dam near Lake Titicaca, which would be fed by diverted rivers from the Eastern Cordillera.In this way it intended to take advantage of the water for irrigation, the production of electrical energy and the creation of new navigable routes.In 1937 he spread his proposal to empty the waters of the Desaguadero River towards Pisagua through a complicated system of aqueducts and tunnels.With this project he intended to generate a large amount of electrical energy, which could even be exported to Argentina.

He was appointed by the Bolivian government as director of the National Museum of Bolivia.His prestige earned him the election of president of the Archaeological Society and the Institute of Folklore of Bolivia.He wrote numerous works throughout his life, among which are Tiwanaku and Islands of the Sun and the Moon; Tiwanaku, the cradle of American man; Prehistoric monuments of the Andean highlands; The Chipaya language; Anthropology and sociology of the inter-Andean races and of the adjacent regions .An eminent archaeologist and anthropologist, Arthur Posnansky brilliantly expounded his doctrines on the antecedents of the discovery of America and the origins of pre-Columbian civilization, and his scholarly work has an obvious literary interest due to its qualities.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ilias Venezis Biography

Ilias Venezis (Aivali, Asia Minor, 1904-Athens, 1973) Greek writer.The novel Matrícula 31328 (1931), which recounts his experience of deportation after the Greco-Turkish war (1920-1921), is his main work.He is also the author of novels ( Serenidad , 1939; Tierra eolia, 1943, and Los vancidos, 1954), of short stories ( The archipelago, 1969), from travel books ( Autumn in Italy, 1950, and Eftalón y viajes, 1973) and from the historical essay Los argonauts (1962).
Post a Comment
Read more

Charvaka or Carvaka Biography

Charvaka or Carvaka (7th century BC) Indian philosopher.Having lost his great work, the Brihaspati sutra , his doctrine has come down to us through Jain, Buddhist and Hindu texts.Skeptic about the Vedic dogma, he sees the changing and fortuitous world and establishes the search for happiness and the pragmatic suppression of suffering as the end of man.
Post a Comment
Read more

Hissène Habré Biography

Hissène Habré (Faya-Largeau, 1940) Politician from Chad.Leader of the Front for the National Liberation of Chad (Frolinat) and the Northern Armed Forces (FAN), in 1978 he negotiated with the government of F.Malloum and became Prime Minister (1978-1979).Later he would be Minister of Defense (1979), but had to go into exile (1980), after coming into conflict with President G.Oueddei.Habré reorganized the FAN and, after overthrowing the president, seized power in 1982, being appointed head of state.With French support, he continued the fight against the prolific forces of Oueddei and the Libyan occupation of northern Chad.However, in 1990 the armed opposition, supported by Libya, eventually overthrew Habré.
Post a Comment
Read more

International Labor Day

The International Workers Day , better known as the International Labor Day is happily celebrated on the May Day As a memorial holiday that refers to all workers.Curiously, not many people know what the events are that are commemorated during this date, and why this day was chosen in most countries of the world, paradoxically excluding the English colonies (New Zealand, United States, Canada, Australia, Wales, etc.) that celebrate it on other dates. Image Surizar The May Day It is a commemorative date determined by the Second International held in Paris in 1889, to honor the so-called Martires de Ch icago who lost their lives during a union protest. Its history goes back to the events produced by the Industrial Revolution in the United States .Towards the end of the 19th century Chicago it was the second most important city in the country in terms of industry, its companies being characterized by taking staff with a very wide working schedule, generating fe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dylan thomas Biography

Dylan Thomas (Swansea, United Kingdom, 1914-New York, 1953) Welsh poet in the English language, undoubtedly one of the British poets of the first half of the 20th century with the greatest renown and resonance international, thanks to the profound originality of his poetry and the humor of his stories and plays.For a time he worked as a journalist for the South Wales Evening Post and, during World War II, as a screenwriter for the BBC.He became known as a poet with Eighteen poems (1934), followed by the volumes Twenty-five poems (1936) and Map of love (1939 ), with which he consolidated as the highest representative of the New Apocalypse poetic movement, which practiced a type of evocational poetry, metaphysical in tone and with a certain romantic background, in which Thomas adopted the role of poet-prophet.He reached his poetic plenitude with the volume Deaths and Births (1946).Author of an autobiographical volume in which he defends his aesthetic conceptions, Portrait of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Harry callahan Biography

Harry Callahan (Detroit, 1912) American photographer.Around 1940, he assimilated the trends of the New Bauhaus and oriented his research towards the themes of the body, landscape and the city, in which he synthesizes documentary precision and pure abstraction.He has also published numerous books.
Post a Comment
Read more

Gonzalo de Berceo Biography

Gonzalo de Berceo (Berceo, Logroño, around 1195-San Millán de la Cogolla Monastery, around 1268) Medieval writer who was the first poet in the Castilian language with a known name. Gonzalo de Berceo He was a clergyman and lived in the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla (Logroño), where he was ordained a priest, and in that of Santo Domingo de Silos (Burgos).In the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla he officiated as a secular clergyman, and came to occupy the positions of deacon (around 1120) and priest (around 1237). Gonzalo de Berceo is the first representative of the so-called "mester de clerecía", a medieval school of men of letters (a qualification that at that time almost coincided with that of priest) whose main contribution was the dissemination of the Latino culture.Berceo inaugurated the path of scholarly poetry, in contrast to that developed by popular epic poetry and that of minstrels. Probably disseminated orally by minstrels, his work has a clear...
Post a Comment
Read more

Zhang Zuolin Biography

Zhang Zuolin (Haicheng, Liaoning Province, 1876-Mukden, 1928) Chinese general.He was governor general of Manchuria, a region of which he became a dictator, and in which he established a tyrannical regime.He controlled Manchuria and much of northern China between 1913 and 1918. Zhang Zuolin He was born into a humble Manchurian peasant family.In his childhood he exercised the office of pastor.The poverty in which his family lived led him to join a group of Manchurian bandits, of which he became head.By 1904 his name had become that of the most famous bandit in Manchuria. That same year he became the leader of a Manchu militia that fought fervently for Japan in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).His performance earned him the support of the Japanese, who in 1911 succeeded in having him appointed military governor of the province of Fengtien, shortly after the proclamation of the Republic.In gratitude, he granted the Japanese broad economic exploitation rights over the wealth of t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Grace Querejeta Biography

Gracia Querejeta (Gracia Querejeta Marín; Madrid, 1962) Spanish film director.Daughter of the costume designer María del Carmen Marín Maiki and the film producer Elías Querejeta, she studied Geography and History at university and received a degree in Ancient History.Although she never wanted to be an actress, she had two circumstantial appearances in front of the cameras: the first, when she was only seven years old, in the film Las secretas intenciones by Antxon Eceiza, and the second when, at the age of thirteen., played a small role in Las Palabras de Max , by Emilio Martínez-Lázaro. Gracia Querejeta His first professional experience behind a Camera was as assistant director in Sweet hours (1981), directed by Carlos Saura and with his father as producer.After finishing his degree, he had the opportunity to direct Tres en la marca in 1988, as part of the collective project Seven footprints , with which he won the Arriaga Theater Award in Bilbao.The film Seven footp...
Post a Comment
Read more