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Martiñez de Compañon, Founder of Peruvian Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Richard P. Schaedel*
Affiliation:
Institute de Antropología Universidad Nacional de Trujillo Trujillo, Peru

Extract

Baltasar Jaime Martiñez de Compañon, has been mentioned in anthropological literature for the past fifty years, albeit rather sporadically; but up to the present time the importance of his legacy has not been appreciated by those anthropologists in the Peruvian field, especially those who have dealt with the ethnology and archaeology of the North Coast. Although one of the purposes of this brief note is to call attention to the necessity of incorporating the valuable illustrative material of Martiñez de Compañon in future works, the primary purpose is to make known to the anthropological public that, except for an extremely rare edition of plates which is but a tiny fraction of the whole, the enormous fount of ethnological and archaeological information that Martiñez left remains unpublished.

Type
Facts And Comments
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1949

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References

1 Trujillo del Peru a Fines del Siglo XVIII, edited by Don Jesus Dominguez Bordona, Madrid, 1936. This volume consists of 208 reproductions of the possible 1,411 in the collection at the Biblioteca del Palacio Real in Madrid, as well as an introduction by Bordona and a catalogue of the entire collection of drawings. The extreme rarity of this work is attested by Means, who in 1942 averred that he was unable to find the work in this country.

2 The data on the life of Martinez were summed up from the introduction of Dominguez Bordona in the work cited above. The only reference to the famous prelate in English is: Phillip Ainsworth Means, “A Great Prelate and Archeologist,” in Hispanic American Essays in Commemoration of James Alexander Robertson, edited by A. Curtis Wilgus, Chapel Hill, 1942.

3 Although one of the collections arrived in Madrid, it appears that the other or a portion thereof wound up in the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadero in Paris, according to information received from Dr. Henri Reichlen. The reason for the mistake was that the same boat that carried Martiñez’ material was also carrying a collection of antiquities of the French scientist Dombet. This bark was captured and had to be ransomed. In the ensuing difficulties, the collections were sent to the wrong addresses.