María Rostworowski Tovar de Diez Canseco (8 August 1915 – 6 March 2016) was a Peruvian historian known for her extensive and detailed publications about Peruvian Ancient Cultures and the Inca Empire.

Rostworowski was born in the Barranco district of Lima. Her father was Jan Jacek Rostworowski, a Polish aristocrat, and her mother, Rita Tovar del Valle, was from Puno. Her grandfather, Agustín Tovar, was president of the Senate and an uncle, Karol Hubert Rostworowski, was a playwright. She studied at various boarding schools in Poland, Belgium, France and England. She was a student of the Peruvian historian Raúl Porras Barrenechea at the National University of San Marcos.

Rostworowski married Count Zygmunt Broel-Plater, a member of the Polish nobility. They had one daughter, Cristina Broel-Plater Rostworowski, but later divorced. She later rmarried Alejandro Diez-Canseco Coronel-Zegarra.

Rostworowski served as vice-president of The National Academy of History (Academia Nacional de Historia), as director of National Museum of History from 1975 to 1980, and was a principal resident scholar at the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP) in Lima. She turned 100 in August 2015.

María Rostworowski died on 6 March 2016, aged 100.

Decorations

• Commander of the Order of the Sun. 2001
• Premio Sigillo D’Oro (Città di Palermo). 1996
• Amauta of Orden de las Palmas Magisteriales. 1990
• Conference on Latin American History. The Howard F. Cline Prize for Ethnohistory / Honorable Mention (1981)
• National Prize of History (1953)

Publications

• Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui (1953)
• Pesos y medidas en el Perú prehispánico (1960)
• Curacas y sucesiones Costa norte (1961)
• Señoríos Indígenas de Lima y Canta (1981)
• Conflicts over Coca Fields in XVI century Perú (1988)
• Historia del Tahuantinsuyu (1988) - Translated for Cambridge as "History of the Inca Realm" (1999)
• Ensayos de Historia Andina: Élites, Etnias, Recursos (1993)
• Pachacamac y el Señor de los Milagros (2004)
• Enciclopedia Temática del Perú: Incas. Lima: El Comercio S.A. (2004)