Abstract

DEL CAIRO HURTADO, Carlos. True Lies or the Topology of War. An Archaeological Approach to the Colonial Cartography of Bocachica, Cartagena de Indias. Apuntes [online]. 2013, vol.26, n.1, pp.186-203. ISSN 1657-9763.

Maps and plans of Cartagena de Indias of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have contributed to consolidate an interpretation framework capable of dissolving the nature-culture and land-sea dichotomies. These type of cartographies were made in order to describe and characterize a space and a territory composed by an heterogeneity of human and non-human actors with the same ability and strength to construct a society. Lies and truths were embodied through maps. Facts were untold and several aspects were over-exaggerated. Indeed the colonial representations of the port were based on the topology of war. The Bocachica's canal is an example of a place where methodology can be applied to use the conjunction, overlapping and polysemy of the cartographies which have helped to develop the archaeological study of maritime battles of 1697 and 1741. This methodology also aims to characterize the evolution of maritime warfare landscape.

Keywords : Landscape; war; Colonial Period; archaeology; Bocachica - Cartagena de Indias; Cartagena (Colombia) - Geography-Maps; Cartagena (Colombia)-Social; archeology and History; ports-History-Caribbean Region.

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