Thursday, April 20, 2006

New Light on Bolivian Cultural Heritage

New Light on Bolivian Cultural Heritage: Finnish university experts give a face to the ancient Tiwanaku people (400-1050 A.D.)

Joe Brady/Virtual Finland

“Now we know what the Tiwanaku people looked like,” Professor Martti Pärssinen, director of the South Central Andean Cultural Heritage Project of the University of Helsinki, told a group of experts assembled in the French Embassy in Bolivia on October 23 and 24, 2004.

Photo: Antti Korpisaari
Click to enlarge the picture
A pair of condor-shaped vessels representing the many animal-shaped ceramics found in Pariti in 2004.

In this meeting in La Paz, sponsored by the Finnish and French Ministries for Foreign Affairs, the most spectacular news was the discovery of an ancient Tiwanaku ceramics offering on the small island of Pariti in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia.

The discovery was made during a short fieldwork period in August 2004. The work was conduced by Antti Korpisaari MA and Jedú Sagárnaga Lic., members of a Finnish-Bolivian research team.

In a test pit excavated by Korpisaari some 300 kilos of broken ceramics were found. They had been deposited in the circular pit that was approximately 70 cm in diameter. The pit was discovered at a depth of about 130 cm below present surface level and it terminated close to groundwater level, at a depth of 310 cm.

According to Dr. Högne Jungner, director of the Dating Laboratory of the University of Helsinki, the six recovered radiocarbon samples demonstrate that the offering was made approximately between 850 and 1050 A.D.

Photo: Antti Korpisaari
Click to enlarge the picture
A portrait vessel representing a man adorned with a lip plug (tembeta) and earplugs.
Photo: Antti Korpisaari
Click to enlarge the picture
A ceramic head from Pariti representing a man with a hole for a lip plug (tembeta).
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