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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jose Risueño Biography

José Risueño (Granada, 1665- id ., 1732) Spanish sculptor and painter.Follower of A.Cano, P.de Mena and D.de Mora, he worked in Granada, where he made the figures of the chapel of the Sacrament of the Carthusian monastery, the San Juan de Dios of the church of San Matías and the Crucified Christ of Sacromonte.It is famous for its polychrome baked clay figurines ( Penitent Magdalene ).

The Berlin Wall - Construction, history and fall of the Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall-Construction, history and fall of the Berlin Wall .The construction and especially the fall of the Berlin Wall have been great events that have marked the history of the 20th century since This wall divided Germany into two parts for more than 28 years. In this article we want to explain the background, the history of the construction, the fall and where you can see the remains of the Berlin Wall.all about the Berlin Wall, the Cold War symbol ! Index of the article Background of the Berlin Wall Let's start the article explaining how Germany was and what happened for the construction of the Berlin Wall.When World War II ended Germany was divided , we focused on Berlin where the city was segmented and n four sectors depending on the countries that occupied it.Or what is the same, Berlin was divided into these four sectors of occupation : The Soviet area The American zone The French zone The English zone When four countries with such different pol...

What is the true origin of Father's Day?

On March 19, Father's Day is celebrated, and although we know that in Spain this celebration occurs on this day because it coincides with the day of the death of San Jose, putative father of Jesus Christ, the truth is that the real origin is a completely different one, then What is the true origin of Father's Day? In Spain Father's Day is celebrated since the 50s , when, following a bell at the department store, Galerias Preciados, it was established that every March 19, it was decided to exalt with gifts to the parents (in 1948 there was already a previous celebration with Mass, gifts and performances in the school of the teacher Manuela Vicente Ferrero which was the first one that I celebrate this day), but it was not in our country where this celebration originated. It seems that the custom of celebrating Father's Day comes to us from the United States and was celebrated for the first time in the early twentieth century, when a young woman decided to ...

Carl Gustav Jung Biography

Carl Gustav Jung (Kesswill, 1875-Küssnacht, 1961) Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist.He studied medicine in Basel, and began his activity at the beginning of this century, in the psychiatric clinic of the University of Zurich, of which he was later medical director. Carl Gustav Jung After having followed in Paris, for a semester, the psychopathology courses given by Pierre Janet at la Salpêtrière (1902), He returned to Zurich, worked at the Burghölzli clinic under the guidance of Eugen Bleuler and carried out studies that soon made him famous ( Diagnostiche Assoziations-Studien , 1904-1906). In 1905 he was appointed a free professor of psychiatry.While he was still working in the last clinic mentioned, of which he had become chief physician, he met Sigmund Freud in 1907, with whom he began a fruitful collaboration.He was editor of the Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschungen , directed by Bleuler and Freud, and in 1911 he became president of the ne...

Giambattista Tiepolo Biography

Giambattista Tiepolo (Giambattista or Giovanni Battista Tiepolo; Venice, 1696-Madrid, 1770) Italian painter.He studied the works of Sebastiano Ricci, Veronese and Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, and imitated the chromaticism, with its violent chiaroscuro effects, of the latter.In his early ceiling paintings (Archinti and Dugnani palaces in Milan) he reaffirmed his decorative talent, based on architectural perspectives, trompe-l'oeil paintings and moving crowds. His first important work, the decorative cycle of the archiepiscopal palace of Udine (1727-1728), composed of biblical narratives, already denotes in the conformation of the figures (of great naturalism) and in the composition of the same contributions from the artist himself, although certain influences from Sebastiano Ricci and Veronese are still detected. Feast of Antony and Cleopatra (c.1743), by Tiepolo In Milan he worked in the Clerici Palace; in Venice he did it in the Scalzi church and in the Labia palace.The...

Giovanni leone Biography

Giovanni Leone (Naples, 1908-Rome, 2001) Italian politician, President of the Republic from December 1971 to December 1978.He obtained a law degree in 1930 and a year later he graduated in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Camerino, where he was a student of Enrico de Nicola, future President of the Republic.In 1933, after obtaining a doctorate in both specialties, he began his teaching career, which throughout his life would alternate with politics and the practice of law from his Neapolitan law firm. He held the chair of Law at the universities of Camerino, Messina, Bari, Naples and Rome.He enrolled in the Christian Democracy (DC) in 1944, and in 1945 he was elected political secretary of the Neapolitan section.Likewise, with the end of the war he was awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel of the military justice system.In 1946 he was elected deputy in the Constituent Assembly and was part of the "Commission of 75" that drew up the Constitution. Ag...

Innocent VI Biography

Innocent VI (Étienne Aubert; Limoges, 1352-Avignon, 1362) Pope (1352-1362).He had been a professor of Civil Law in Tolosa, where he later founded the Colegio de San Marcial. Innocent VI Simple in his customs, Pope Innocent VI put an end to the excessive privileges and pomp of the prelates and sought to reduce the luxury of the pontifical court.He provided ecclesiastical jobs for persons of recognized ability, abolished a large number of reservations and privileges, prohibited the simultaneous performance of various benefits, and sent to his churches the numerous prelates residing in Avignon without being called, threatening them with excommunication. He recklessly released tribune Cola Rienzi from prison to help him overthrow also tribune Baroncetti, who had terrorized the city of Rome with his cruelties.Rienzi, whom the people had received as a liberator, became a hateful despot and was eventually assassinated by the people after subjecting him to the most ignominious dealing...

Hans-georg gadamer Biography

Hans-Georg Gadamer (Marburg, Germany, 1900-Heidelberg, 2002) German philosopher.Hans-Georg Gadamer graduated with a doctoral thesis in philosophy directed by Martin Heidegger in Freiburg (1922).He then taught aesthetics and ethics in his hometown (1933), in Kiel (1934-1935) and again in Marburg, where he was appointed extraordinary professor (1937).Two years later he obtained a chair at the University of Leipzig, to later move to the universities of Frankfurt on the Main (1947-1949) and Heidelberg (1949), where he took over from Karl Jaspers as professor of philosophy.He became a professor emeritus in 1968. Hans-Georg Gadamer His most important work, Truth and method.Elements of a philosophical hermeneutic (1960), established the presuppositions and objectives of the hermeneutic current, according to which the world does not exist, but rather different historical meanings of world .Despite the relativism that this conception entails, Gadamer always refers in his writings to...

Gregory IX Biography

Gregory IX (Ugolino de Segni; Anagni, c .1170-Rome, 1241) Pope of the Catholic Church (1227-1241).Nephew of Pope Innocent III, he studied in Paris and Bologna and in 1206 he was appointed Cardinal Bishop of Ostia by his uncle.A man of notable legal scholarship, he defended with great energy the claims of power of the papacy and the freedom of the church, for which reason he came into conflict with Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen. Pope Gregory IX approves the Decretals (fresco by Rafael Sanzio) Already in 1227 he excommunicated Frederick II for failing to fulfill his promise to undertake a new crusade, and in 1229 ordered the invasion of the kingdom of Sicily.In 1230 he made peace with the emperor, although the struggle between the Church and the emperor continued.In 1239 he again excommunicated Federico II and decreed a crusade against him; the imperial troops were about to enter Rome when he passed away. During his pontificate, Gregory IX founded the Inquisition and, with ...

Heinrich Heine Biography

Heinrich Heine (Düsseldorf, present-day Germany, 1797-Paris, 1856) Prussian poet.Of Jewish origin, he studied literature, law and philosophy in Bonn and Berlin; His teachers and friends included Hegel and August Schlegel.His first lyrical compositions date from 1822, clearly influenced by Lord Byron and Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Heinrich Heine In 1823 he published Lyrical Intermezzo , a work linked to two tragedies ( Almanzor and Ratcliff ) of which his melodic vein should be noted, and in 1826 the first part of the Travel Paintings , whose four-volume edition he completed in 1831.These first Prose texts combine a fervent youthful lyricism with a scathing satire against diverse people and institutions.The ironic and agile prose of this work influenced later German authors and laid the foundations for a style that in the same text merged genres such as poetry, short stories, political essays, journalistic chronicles and autobiography. In 1827 Book of Songs was releas...