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 Refugio Velasco Biography

José Refugio Velasco (Aguascalientes, 1851-Mexico, 1923) Mexican military.He evicted Pancho Villa de Torreón during the Huerta regime and, after the latter's fall, was part of the interim Carbajal government.Appointed commander-in-chief of the army, he signed the Teoloyucán Accords (1914) with the constitutionalists, which put an end to the Huerta period.

Gregorio Vazquez de Arce Biography

Gregorio Vázquez de Arce (Gregorio Vázquez de Arce y Ceballos; Santa Fe de Bogotá, 1638- id ., 1711) Colombian painter.Of Andalusian origin, he studied painting in the workshop of Baltasar de Figueroa, appreciating in his work the influence of Murillo and Zurbarán, who received through the Andalusian artists who worked in Santa Fe.He made numerous series of paintings on religious themes, in addition to cultivate the portrait and allegorical painting.

Carlos Suriñach Biography

Carlos Suriñach (Barcelona, ​​1915-New Haven, Connecticut, 1997) Spanish composer and conductor, nationalized from the United States.Trained in Barcelona, ​​Cologne and Berlin, he spent most of his career in the US.His work, symphonic, for stage and chamber, is influenced by flamenco ( Andalusian dance , 1946; Magic Fair , 1956; Spanish Suite , 1970; Concerto for piano and orchestra , 1973).

John newcombe Biography

John Newcombe (Sydney, 1944) Australian tennis player.His sporting life began as a soccer and cricket player, and it was not until 1957 that he began in tennis, a sport in which he was junior champion of Australia at seventeen, which earned him being selected for the Australian Cup team.Davis, formed by a group of Australian tennis players who won all the most important tournaments that were played (Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Emerson, etc.). In 1966 he won the Davis Cup against Spain in Sydney , forming a couple with Tony Roche, with whom he formed one of the best couples in the history of world tennis.He returned to renew the title two years later, in 1968.He was individual champion at Wimbledon in 1967 and 1968 and won the United States Open, in Forest Hills in 1967.However, he obtained his greatest successes in the doubles modality, always with Tony Roche and sometimes with Fletcher; with them he was awarded the Wimbledon title in 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969 and 1970.After his retirem...

Jorge Bessières Biography

Jorge Bessières (?, 1780-Molina de Aragón, 1825) French adventurer.In the War of Independence he deserted the French army and joined the Spanish.In 1822 he participated in the republican uprising in Barcelona, ​​but soon he went over to the absolutist side and was appointed field marshal.In 1825 he led an ultra-realistic uprising.He was shot.

Hugo Wast Biography

Hugo Wast (Córdoba, 1883-Buenos Aires, 1962) Pseudonym of the Argentine novelist Gustavo Martínez Zuviría, one of the most discussed Argentine writers of the 20th century.Of some of his novels, such as Flor de durazno (1911), taken to the big screen in what was Carlos Gardel's acting debut, more than one hundred thousand copies were sold, and many of them translations have been made in up to eight languages; however, the criticism is generally negative: some historians of Spanish-American literature go so far as to dispense with his name; others even affirm that their work lacks literary value. Hugo Wast, one of the most widely read Spanish-speaking writers in the world, became a lawyer at the Universidad del Litoral (Santa Fe), was a professor of Economics at said University and directed the National Library, in Buenos Aires, from 1931 to 1955.Deputy to the Cortes (1916-1920) and Minister of Justice and Public Education (1943-1944), he obtained in 1922 the gold medal of the...

The Battle of Trafalgar - Background, Characters, Countries, Battle and Consequences

The Battle of Trafalgar, rivers of ink have been poured over a naval battle of such caliber. English ships against a Franco-Spanish Aramade, the tension between these three countries not resolved for centuries, seemed to settle in this terrible battle.But what caused this confrontation, what characters intervened, where the battle took place or what consequences it had.This and other questions are going to answer them in this article that we have titled The Battle of Trafalgar-Background, Characters, Countries, Battle and Consequences , let us know all the data, how a battle was created that has inspired great writers and film directors. Index of the article The Battle of Trafalgar | Background Spain, France and England throughout history have coincided in terms of interests, the three countries with a strong tendency to colonialism and expansion territorial, they have often been harmed their interests.Roughs that have been limited on some occasions through treaties and...

Egon Eiermann Biography

Egon Eiermann (Neuendorf, 1904-Baden-Baden, 1970) German architect.He was a disciple of H.Poelzig and was influenced by Mies van der Rohe.He brought the rationalist tradition to the utmost technological and functional refinement (Blumberg handkerchief factory, Merkur department store in Stuttgart).

Menstruation in the Middle Ages: aphrodisiac blood

At present, talk about menstruation or monthly bleeding , is something normal and assimilated by society.When the girls begin to stain, either they already know what is going on, or they are explain calmly and in detail. However, and Assuming that 99% of people in the world know what menstruation is, there is an undeniable fact: the scandalous thing of the matter.said Chef, one of the most polemic characters in the animated South Park series, about women: « I do not trust an animal that is bleeding for five days and does not die «.For the tranquility of many, the character was removed shortly. Menstrual scandal But it is true that a woman, in menstrual period, can lose 40 ml if everything is normal .If the bleeding is abundant, the amount can be doubled.The question is, what to think ian of this circumstance who lived it in the Middle Ages? At that time people were burned for witchcraft, diseases were cured with leeches and other irreproducible barbarities here. As expecte...

Emilio Ravignani Biography

Emilio Ravignani (Buenos Aires, 1886-1954) Argentine historian, specialist in the History of Law and the History of Constitutionalism.He was, along with Rómulo Carbia, Ricardo Levene and Luis María Torres, one of the most prominent components of the so-called New Argentine Historical School, characterized by combining the classic components of the southern historiographic school with the new elements from Europe, especially the institutionalist current. Ravignani studied at the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences in his hometown, graduating in 1909.In that same year he began teaching at the Higher Institute of Secondary Teachers, taking charge of the subject of History of America.Later, he was professor of Argentine Constitutional History at the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences of the Universidad de la Plata; from the University of La Plata, he went on to the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires, where he returned to take up the subject of America...