Dick Edgar Ibarra Grasso

Dick Edgar Ibarra Grasso (Concordia, Entre Ríos, January 17, 1914 – Buenos Aires, July 13, 2000) was an Argentine researcher who explored the possibility of colonization of the Americas by several antique ethnic groups.

He suggested that the coasts of Ecuador and Peru could be found in Ptolemy and Marinus of Tyre maps on the so-called Cattigara Peninsula. He based some of his assumptions on the suggestions made by Enrique de Gandía in the book "Primitivos navegantes vascos". He was considered by Paul Gallez, member of the Argentine School of Protocartography.

He arrived in Bolivia in 1940. His first destination was Potosí. At the age of 26, Ibarra Grasso came to Bolivia to look for the current existence of an Andean ideographic writing that he had seen mentioned in texts by Nordenskiold, Tschudi and Wiener.

In 1963 he created the School of Anthropology and Archaeology of the Universidad Mayor de San Simon, the first in Bolivia and the third in Latin America, with 18 students.

In the field work of the students of the School abundant archaeological material was obtained (textiles, stone objects, ceramics) that increased notably the collection of the Museum of the UMSS. Ibarra and his students worked in Mizque, Aiquile, Omereque, Tiwananku, Incarrakay and Incallajta.

He founded three archaeological museums:

• Casa de la Moneda de Potosí, 1940.
• San Francisco Xavier University Archaeological Museum, 1944.
• Archaeological Museum of the Universidad Mayor de San Simon, 1951.

The Universidad Mayor de San Simón awarded him the Doctorate Honoris Causa and the Bolivian State the Condor of the Andes.