Carlos Ponce Sanginés (

La Paz La Paz, officially Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Aymara language, Aymara: Chuqi Yapu ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With 755,732 residents as of 2024, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities by populati ...

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

; May 6, 1925La Paz, Bolivia; March 18, 2005) was a Bolivian archaeologist and restorer who dedicated a significant part of his life to the study of

Tiwanaku Tiwanaku ( or ) is a Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia, near Lake Titicaca, about 70 kilometers from La Paz, and it is one of the largest sites in South America. Surface remains currently cover around 4 square kilometers and in ...

Biography :

Ponce Sanginés was born in

, Bolivia in May 1925 and graduated from the archaeology program at the

Higher University of San Andrés Universidad Mayor de San Andrés or UMSA () is the leading public university in Bolivia, established since 1830 in the city of La Paz. UMSA is the second-oldest university in Bolivia, after the University of San Francisco Xavier de Chuquisaca ( ...

before specializing at the

National University of Córdoba The National University of Córdoba (), is a public university located in the city of Córdoba, Argentina. Founded in 1613, the university is the oldest in Argentina, the third oldest university of the Americas, with the first university being ...

, Argentina. In 1958, he founded the "Center for Archaeological Research at Tiwanaku" in Bolivia, becoming one of the first Bolivians to study the archaeological site. He played a crucial role in establishing the National Museum of Archaeology on January 31, 1960, which until then had the status of a multidisciplinary museum. This change was a result of a study conducted by Ponce Sanginés when he served as the Director of the Center for Archaeological Research in Tiwanacu, with the museum being overseen by the architect Gregorio Cordero Miranda at that time. In 1964, Ponce Sanginés served as the Minister of Peasant Affairs. In that same year, he, along with his wife, Julia Elena Fortún, discovered one of the best-preserved stelae of that culture in

, which was later known as the "

Ponce Monolith The Ponce Monolith, also known as the Ponce Stela, is a monumental stone sculpture from the pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Tiwanaku polity, Tiwanaku civilization. It is located in the Kalasasaya area of the Tiwanaku, ruins of Tiwanaku in Bolivia ...

" in his honor. He restored the

Kalasasaya The Kalasasaya (also: Kalassasaya; ''kala'' for ''stone''; ''saya'' or ''sayasta'' for ''standing up'') or Stopped Stones is a major archaeological structure that is part of Tiwanaku, an ancient archeological complex in the Andes of western Boli ...

temple and initiated excavations at

Akapana Akapana (Akkapana) is an artificial platform mound (sometimes referred to as a pyramid) at the pre-Columbian archaeological site of Tiwanaku in Bolivia, located in the department of La Paz. It is composed of seven levels of platforms contained by ...

. In 1975, he founded the National Institute of Archaeology of Bolivia. He secured the declaration of the Iskanwaya ruins as a national monument in Bolivia. Throughout his life, he published more than 50 books.

Awards and honours

He was awarded the Condor of the Andes Prize shortly before his death in 2005. He also received the National Culture Prize (1977), the Pergamino al Mérito Prize from the Tiawanaku Municipality (1989), the Puma de Oro Prize (1986), the Order of Gold Medal (1978), the Medal of Beloved Son of Samaipata (1974), and the Pedro Domingo Murillo Medal (1971).

Notable publications

* "Tiwanaku Pottery" (1948). * "Bolivian Archaeology" (1957). * "Mollo Pottery and the Sculpture of a Chiripa Stone" (1963). * "Concise Description of the Semi-Subterranean Temple of Tiwanaku" (1964). * "Tunupa and Ekako" (1969). * "Cataloging Bolivia's Archaeological Heritage" (1974). * "Tiwanaku: Space, Time, and Culture" (1976). * "Tiwanaku: 200 Years of Archaeological Research" (1999).

References

External links

Publications by Carlos Ponce Sanginés on the Virtual Library Network of the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (umsa.bo).

Publications by Carlos Ponce Sanginés on Google Books.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponce Sangines, Carlos 20th-century Bolivian historians Bolivian archaeologists 1925 births 2005 deaths