Von Grumbkow had first visited Tiwanaku between the end of 1876 and the beginning of 1877, when he accompanied as a photographer the expedition of French adventurer Théodore Ber, financed by American businessman Henry Meiggs, against Ber’s promise of donating the artifacts he will find, on behalf of Meiggs, to Washington's Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Ber’s expedition was cut short by the violent hostility of the local population, instigated by the Catholic parish priest, but von Grumbkow’s early pictures survive.