Wiener-Anspach Fellow Christophe Delaere, PhD in History of art and Archaeology (ULB), recently published a book entitled Le patrimoine subaquatique du lac Titicaca, Bolivie. Utilisation et perception de l’espace lacustre durant la période Tiwanaku (500-1150 PCN) (Bar Publishing, Oxford, 2020). This volume inaugurates a new series in Bar Publishing’s catalogue, “Cultural Studies in Maritime and Underwater Archaeology”.
In 2013, at a press conference in the presence of Bolivian President Evo Morales, Christophe announced the extraordinary discovery made during the excavations which he directed at lake Titicaca: 2,500 items and fragments, pointing to the existence of “previously unknown ritual offerings to the lake” and providing “precious information about the oral transmission of knowledge and the importance of cultural heritage in Bolivia”.
In 2019 Christophe and his colleagues José M. Capriles (The Pennsylvania State University) and Charles Stanish (University of South Florida) presented the findings of this research project in a paper entitled “Underwater ritual offerings in the Island of the Sun and the formation of the Tiwanaku state”. Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the article caught the interest of both specialized and mainstream media.
Christophe is currently carrying out a second year of research at the University of Oxford, under the supervision of Prof. Damian Robinson (School of Archaeology).