John Victor Murra
 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (November 2023) |
John Victor Murra | |
|---|---|
| Born | Isak Lipschitz 24 August 1916 Odesa, Ukraine, Russian Empire |
| Died | 16 October 2006 (aged 90) Ithaca, New York, USA |
| Academic background | |
| Education | University of Chicago |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Anthropologist |
| Sub-discipline | Inca Empire researcher |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance | Abraham Lincoln Brigade |
| Battles/wars | Battle of the Ebro |
John Victor Murra (24 August 1916 – 16 October 2006) was a Ukrainian-American professor of anthropology and a researcher of the Inca Empire.
Early life and education
Born Isak Lipschitz in
Career
Murra taught at the
His work included the development of a new perspective of the Inca Empire, where trade and giftgiving among kin were common. Through extensive perusal of Spanish colonial archives and court documents, he found that the Inca dwelling in the rainforest hiked into the Andes to trade crops for products like wool from their mountain-dwelling kin. Murra called that "the vertical archipelago", and his model has been verified by later research. Some contest components of the theory, but it has become the accepted economic model of the Central Andes.[1]
Murra's writings include The Economic Organization of the Inca State (1956), Cloth and its Functions in the Inca State (1962), and El mundo andino: población, medio ambiente y economía (2002). After his retirement, he worked at the National Museum of Ethnography in La Paz, Bolivia.[2]
He died in his home in Ithaca, New York, in 2006.[1]
References
- ^ New York Times.
John V. Murra, a professor of anthropology who culled voluminous Spanish colonial archives for research that reshaped the image of the Incas and their vast South American empire, died October 16 at his home in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 90.
- ^ "What's New at the National Anthropological Archives (August 2005)". Archived from the original on 2006-10-28. Retrieved 2006-10-24.
External links
- Register to the Papers of John Victor Murra, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
- John Murra books collection, Collection at the Humanities Library (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
