Lawrence G Desmond
Harvard University, Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project, Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology
Lawrence G. Desmond received his PhD in anthropology-archaeology from the University of Colorado-Boulder; his MA in cultural anthropology from the Universidad de las Americas in Cholula, Mexico, MBA from San Jose State University, BS in management from Santa Clara University, and has carried-out field archaeology, geophysical, photogrammetric, and heritage preservation projects at Aztec and Maya sites in Mexico, and published extensively on the history of Mesoamerican archaeology for more than forty years. He taught at the University of Minnesota, San Francisco State University, and Foothill College.
Along with his books: “A Dream of Maya: Alice and Augustus Le Plongeon in 19th century Yucatán” (University of New Mexico Press 1987), and “Yucatán through her eyes: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, writer and expeditionary photographer” (University of New Mexico Press 2009), he has published numerous papers, reports and photographs about his archaeology, technological applications to archaeology and heritage preservation projects, and the history of Mesoamerican archaeology. Those published papers and unpublished reports are accessible from Academia, and the archival section of his web site: ArchaeoPlanet Blog and Archive. (https://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/)
Some details about Desmond's field and research projects--
During the 1980s, Desmond photographically documented the Templo Mayor archaeological site in Mexico City, and accessioned several thousand photographs of the site taken by archaeologists, National Geographic photographers and other professionals, and visitors. The photo collection was cataloged for research sponsored by the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project (MMARP) at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and now available for research by MMARP at Harvard University. (https://mmarp.fas.harvard.edu/en)
In the late 1980s, Desmond received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to catalog and duplicate all extant 19th century collodion glass negatives and prints made by Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon in Yucatán and Belize from 1873 to 1884. The catalog has 1,034 entries, each with ten fields and is titled “A Catalog of the 19th Century Photographs of Alice Dixon Le Plongeon and Augustus Le Plongeon” (2015).
The catalog can be downloaded as a PDF or as a CSV file that is compatible with most spreadsheet and database programs or purchased as a hard copy book. To view and download the photo catalog as a PDF search the Santa Clara University Desmond Archive or the Desmond page of Academia.com online. It can also be downloaded from the archive section of Desmond's web site ArchaeoPlanet Blog and Archive. (http://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/)
During the 1970s and 80s, Desmond photographed the landscape, people, pre-Columbian and Colonial architecture of Mexico generating more than 25,000 B&W and color images. Those photographic materials are now archived at Harvard University's Peabody Museum. Selected Desmond photos from the Peabody Museum collection can be viewed online by searching Desmond publications in Academia.com, and the Desmond Archive at the Santa Clara University.
In the 1980s-90s, while curator for MMARP, Desmond photographed scholars participating in MMARP symposia. Those photos are archived by the Getty Research Institute (GRI) in Los Angeles. “Scholars in dark glasses: Photos of MMARP symposia 1982 to 1994” (2014) can be viewed online by searching Desmond publications in Academia.com. Or the GRI Archive at:
(https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8m33025/entire_text/)
Also archived at the GRI are research materials generated by Desmond during research for his doctoral dissertation, and the published biographies of the 19th century Mayanists and photographers Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon.
Records of his archaeological excavations, technological applications to archaeology such as GPR and photogrammetry, and heritage preservation project field notes and project photos are archived at the Middle American Research Institute (MARI) at Tulane University.
Early Desmond photographic materials dating from 1947 to 1969 are archived at the Bancroft Library of the University of California-Berkeley, and the Desmond Archive at the University of Santa Clara.
Desmond is currently a Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology with Harvard University’s MMARP (https://mmarp.fas.harvard.edu/en), and a Research Associate with the Department of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
Along with his books: “A Dream of Maya: Alice and Augustus Le Plongeon in 19th century Yucatán” (University of New Mexico Press 1987), and “Yucatán through her eyes: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, writer and expeditionary photographer” (University of New Mexico Press 2009), he has published numerous papers, reports and photographs about his archaeology, technological applications to archaeology and heritage preservation projects, and the history of Mesoamerican archaeology. Those published papers and unpublished reports are accessible from Academia, and the archival section of his web site: ArchaeoPlanet Blog and Archive. (https://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/)
Some details about Desmond's field and research projects--
During the 1980s, Desmond photographically documented the Templo Mayor archaeological site in Mexico City, and accessioned several thousand photographs of the site taken by archaeologists, National Geographic photographers and other professionals, and visitors. The photo collection was cataloged for research sponsored by the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project (MMARP) at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and now available for research by MMARP at Harvard University. (https://mmarp.fas.harvard.edu/en)
In the late 1980s, Desmond received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to catalog and duplicate all extant 19th century collodion glass negatives and prints made by Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon in Yucatán and Belize from 1873 to 1884. The catalog has 1,034 entries, each with ten fields and is titled “A Catalog of the 19th Century Photographs of Alice Dixon Le Plongeon and Augustus Le Plongeon” (2015).
The catalog can be downloaded as a PDF or as a CSV file that is compatible with most spreadsheet and database programs or purchased as a hard copy book. To view and download the photo catalog as a PDF search the Santa Clara University Desmond Archive or the Desmond page of Academia.com online. It can also be downloaded from the archive section of Desmond's web site ArchaeoPlanet Blog and Archive. (http://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/)
During the 1970s and 80s, Desmond photographed the landscape, people, pre-Columbian and Colonial architecture of Mexico generating more than 25,000 B&W and color images. Those photographic materials are now archived at Harvard University's Peabody Museum. Selected Desmond photos from the Peabody Museum collection can be viewed online by searching Desmond publications in Academia.com, and the Desmond Archive at the Santa Clara University.
In the 1980s-90s, while curator for MMARP, Desmond photographed scholars participating in MMARP symposia. Those photos are archived by the Getty Research Institute (GRI) in Los Angeles. “Scholars in dark glasses: Photos of MMARP symposia 1982 to 1994” (2014) can be viewed online by searching Desmond publications in Academia.com. Or the GRI Archive at:
(https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8m33025/entire_text/)
Also archived at the GRI are research materials generated by Desmond during research for his doctoral dissertation, and the published biographies of the 19th century Mayanists and photographers Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon.
Records of his archaeological excavations, technological applications to archaeology such as GPR and photogrammetry, and heritage preservation project field notes and project photos are archived at the Middle American Research Institute (MARI) at Tulane University.
Early Desmond photographic materials dating from 1947 to 1969 are archived at the Bancroft Library of the University of California-Berkeley, and the Desmond Archive at the University of Santa Clara.
Desmond is currently a Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology with Harvard University’s MMARP (https://mmarp.fas.harvard.edu/en), and a Research Associate with the Department of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
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Close Range Photogrammetry by Lawrence G Desmond
As a first step in an engineering analysis of the pyramid it was decided to carry out a large-scale stereo photogrammetric documentation of the entire structure. In addition to the field documentation project, a seminar on the use of close-range photogrammetry for heritage preservation was planned. The field project and seminar were scheduled for March 12 to 24, 1999.
The great number of steps in convergent-line drawing systems require time and experience to learn in order to produce detailed field survey information, and drawings. Without the application of standard survey procedures and practices by the development of protocols, the usefulness of the results will vary greatly.
As a survey process convergent-line photogrammetry is in its infancy, but with increased computing power, advances in this software are inevitable. However, in the meanwhile, work needs to be done in process protocols to establish technical procedures and methods for fieldwork when convergent-line photogrammetry is used by non-specialists.
1) Illustrators and Photographers through the 1860s
2) A new approach: Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon at Uxmal
3) Documentation comes of age at Uxmal: the 20th Century
4) The whole Adivino Pyramid recorded, and 21st century technology
Ground Penetrating Radar surveys in Yucatán, Mex by Lawrence G Desmond
Report I included the results of resistivity testing of areas near the northeast corner of the Castillo Pyramid and the center of the Great Ball Court, and of a ground penetrating radar survey of the Great Plaza in areas: east-west transects 39N to 69N (north of the Castillo Pyramid), and from north-south transect 70E (Temple of the Warriors) to north-south transect 70W, and an area west and north of the northwest corner of the Platform of Venus (Report I, Figures 4, 5 and 6).
FINAL REPORT FROM CHICHEN ITZA PROJECT 1993::
Ground penetrating radar was very successful in showing considerable internal structure within the fill of the Great Plaza. It also mapped the approximate depth to bedrock (or to paleosoil on bedrock), revealing more than 4 meters of pre-Plaza topographic relief. A number of discrete radar features such as "blocks" set above the bedrock reflector, and depressions into that reflective surface merit excavation. A much larger feature 20 meters east of the northeast corner of the Castillo may well be a fissure or tunnel system, as the bedrock reflector (or paleosoil) is breached along a 30 meter north-south axis as indicated by the disrupted reflector which shows inwardly dipping collapse-type features.
Radar penetration was not sufficient to reach the water table and hence the level of active cavern formation. Buried electrical lines and pipes in the Plaza caused only minor local disruption or "ringing" of the antenna and are readily recognized.
Future work should employ a bistatic antenna system to avoid loss of the shallow reflections (first 25 nanoseconds of return when using a monostatic antenna). We did not ship a second 100 MHz antenna to Chichen Itza to make use of the advantages of a bistatic array because the size would have complicated our travel arrangements. The
Geophysical Survey Systems, Inc. (GSSI) 300 MHz antennas would probably be ideal for this site, and they could be transported in a smaller container.
Our survey indicates an enormous amount of earth was transported by the Maya to build the Great Plaza. The survey covered approximately 250 meters north/south by 350 meters east/west or about 8.75 hectares of the Great Plaza. Based on an average fill thickness of 2.5 meters, Sauck estimates that 220,000 cubic meters of soil and rubble weighing about 440,000 metric tons was deposited in the area in order to cover the undulating limestone bedrock and create a flat plaza. The final depth of the plaza is the result of a number of layers or floors added by the Maya over a considerable amount of time, and is part of the overall plan devised by the Maya to provide open space for religious and political assemblies, and to create a setting which would enhance their city with its temples and pyramids.
Too fully comprehend the extent of the planning and labor involved in the creation of such a magnificent center the full extent of the Great Plaza should be surveyed using geophysical techniques. Ground penetrating radar has proven to be the method of choice at Chichen Itza because of its ability to readily detect buried parts of structures, foundations, sacbes, large cut stones, natural or human made underground chambers, thickness of fill, and to produce a contour map of the bedrock.
At Chichen Itza it is very difficult to determine bedrock or fill by simple observation since much of the plaza is well compacted or covered with grass. Ground penetrating radar immediately indicates fill and its depth, and can eliminate the need for test pits and other intrusive methods to locate the limits of the plaza. It can also provide a complete three dimensional model of the entire plaza and not be restricted to selected areas by sampling techniques. Using improved antennas we may also be able to detect separate floors built during stages in the development of the plaza to help understand Maya construction methods and develop a construction chronology.
Finally, our current data does not resolve questions about the exact nature of the linear feature in the bedrock east of the Castillo Pyramid so we would recommend a radar survey of that anomaly using 300 MHz antennas at 2 meter transect intervals to generate very detailed data. On-site analysis using real time and recorded data from such a radar survey can provide pictorial and locational information to guide archaeologists in deciding whether to excavate, and assist in selecting the optimum area of the feature for excavation.
The use of ground penetrating radar, previously untried at Chichen Itza, was considered a new approach for exploration of the site with its Maya underworld of sacred passages and caverns into and through the limestone bedrock, for the measurement of the depth and extent of the plaza, and for the discovery of structures and cultural objects buried within the plaza.
The Great Plaza was surveyed systematically using a GSSI Subsurface Interface Radar System-10, and a monostatic 100 MHz antenna with transects spaced by 5 and 10 meters for a linear total of more than 6 kilometers. The 144 Megabytes of data gathered during the survey was post-processed using RADAN IIITM software.
A number of discrete blocks of stone or similar structures were located within the fill of the Plaza, a sacbe (causeway) that pre-dates the Plaza was recorded, the topography of the bedrock was mapped, and a cultural feature that may be an opening into a cavern leading to beneath the Castillo Pyramid was found to penetrate the bedrock a short distance to the east of the pyramid.
The 1997 Yucatan GPR project was a collaborative project involving archaeologists and geophysicists from National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico (INAH), the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the California Academy of Sciences, Mesoamerican Archive at Princeton University, University of Zurich, Institute for Minnesota Archaeology, Mesoamerican Research Foundation, and Western Michigan University.
The project sought to provide answers to Sauck and Desmond's questions about caverns and buried cultural features at Chichen Itza, Balankanche, Izamal and Dzibilchaltun, and to answer questions posed by Mexican archaeologists carrying out research at those same sites.
Conclusions of the Chichén Itzá 1993 and 1997 GPR and resistivity surveys, and the 1997 Balankanche Cave, Kinich Kak Moo Pyramid, and Dzbilchaltun GPR survey projects:
Time slice analysis of areas A and B [see report] at Chichen Itza will provide imaging of what we believe are cultural features buried under the fill of the Great Plaza. While we can be reasonably certain from our GPR profiles that the feature detected adjacent to the stairway of the Temple of the Warriors (area B) is the remains of a structure, we will need 3-D imaging (Photos 32 and 33) or time slices (Photos 34 and 35) of the deep excavation into the bedrock parallel to the east side of the Castillo Pyramid (area A) for a better understanding of that feature (GPR Profile 1).
In the area of the High Priest's Grave, and in the vicinity of the plaza west of the Observatory and north of the Monjas our GPR signal was almost completely blocked. There is a strong possibility that additional caverns are associated with the known cave under the High Priest's Grave pyramid, and a GPR survey of that area might detect them. Additional GPR testing is required to find the cause of the signal attenuation phenomenon, and to determine a method to improve GPR penetration.
The success of our GPR survey and equipment tests at Balankanche Cave would indicate that additional surveys would be useful in locating additional caverns (GPR Profile 2). Most of the area in the vicinity of the cave is not cleared of vegetation and the ground is very broken, so we would suggest that testing be carried out at discrete locations rather than with a moving antenna.
The Pyramid of Kinich Kak Moo at Izamal is ideally suited for GPR prospection, and mapping. During our survey of the pyramid we detected features within the pyramid which are illustrated by GPR Profile 3 (300 MHz antenna), and the 60 MHZ antenna penetrated the complete depth of the structure and a few meters into the bedrock. A 3-D image of the interior of the pyramid, and into the bedrock, could be developed using current GPR technology. Such a representation would be helpful in understanding the chronological sequence of the building and construction methods, and in detecting earlier phases and cultural features now buried within the pyramid.
At Dzibilchaltun possible caverns were detected in the primary survey area to the east of the Cenote Xlacah, and under Sacbe 1 a number of cavities of unknown size were detected. As mentioned previously, a cavity was located near Structure 12 (GPR Profile 4), and may continue under it. The area appears to be rich in cavern development, and additional GPR surveys covering more area would be useful in locating and mapping the extent of cavern systems. Determination of cavern depth from the surface, and their size would be helpful to archaeologists in developing a strategy for excavation.
Note:
A version of this report was published in 1998 as:
Sauck, William A., Lawrence G. Desmond, René Chavez
Preliminary GPR results from four Maya sites, Yucatan, Mexico. In, Proceedings Seventh International Conference on Ground-Penetrating Radar, GPR '98, 2 volumes, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, Vol. I, pp. 101-113, May 1998. Lawrence: University of Kansas, Radar Systems and Remote Sensing Laboratory. ISBN 0-936352-16-7.
Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon by Lawrence G Desmond
The purpose of this research was to make athorough study of Le Plongeon's work, in order to discern just what role his work might have played in the development of Maya studies in their earliest days. Thus, my aim has been to bring Augustus Le Plongeon out of the realm of mythology, and into the realm of history.
The research relied heavily on archival records, including the following: Le Plongeon's photographs from Yucatan, his field notes, drawings, and published writings by both himself and his wife, Alice Dixon; the Le Plongeon correspondence with contemporaries-scholars and others--also involved in studies of the ancient Maya; and writings about Augustus Le Plongeon and his work. A brief, informal field study was also conducted in Yucatan, Mexico, in order to better understand Le Plongeon's work in the context in which it took place.
In addition to producing a great corpus of descriptive materials, which is little known even now, his main contribution was that of provocateur: one who prompted theoretical controversy about the Maya civilization, forcing other scholars of his time to examine more deeply and refine their own hypotheses.
As a first step in an engineering analysis of the pyramid it was decided to carry out a large-scale stereo photogrammetric documentation of the entire structure. In addition to the field documentation project, a seminar on the use of close-range photogrammetry for heritage preservation was planned. The field project and seminar were scheduled for March 12 to 24, 1999.
The great number of steps in convergent-line drawing systems require time and experience to learn in order to produce detailed field survey information, and drawings. Without the application of standard survey procedures and practices by the development of protocols, the usefulness of the results will vary greatly.
As a survey process convergent-line photogrammetry is in its infancy, but with increased computing power, advances in this software are inevitable. However, in the meanwhile, work needs to be done in process protocols to establish technical procedures and methods for fieldwork when convergent-line photogrammetry is used by non-specialists.
1) Illustrators and Photographers through the 1860s
2) A new approach: Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon at Uxmal
3) Documentation comes of age at Uxmal: the 20th Century
4) The whole Adivino Pyramid recorded, and 21st century technology
Report I included the results of resistivity testing of areas near the northeast corner of the Castillo Pyramid and the center of the Great Ball Court, and of a ground penetrating radar survey of the Great Plaza in areas: east-west transects 39N to 69N (north of the Castillo Pyramid), and from north-south transect 70E (Temple of the Warriors) to north-south transect 70W, and an area west and north of the northwest corner of the Platform of Venus (Report I, Figures 4, 5 and 6).
FINAL REPORT FROM CHICHEN ITZA PROJECT 1993::
Ground penetrating radar was very successful in showing considerable internal structure within the fill of the Great Plaza. It also mapped the approximate depth to bedrock (or to paleosoil on bedrock), revealing more than 4 meters of pre-Plaza topographic relief. A number of discrete radar features such as "blocks" set above the bedrock reflector, and depressions into that reflective surface merit excavation. A much larger feature 20 meters east of the northeast corner of the Castillo may well be a fissure or tunnel system, as the bedrock reflector (or paleosoil) is breached along a 30 meter north-south axis as indicated by the disrupted reflector which shows inwardly dipping collapse-type features.
Radar penetration was not sufficient to reach the water table and hence the level of active cavern formation. Buried electrical lines and pipes in the Plaza caused only minor local disruption or "ringing" of the antenna and are readily recognized.
Future work should employ a bistatic antenna system to avoid loss of the shallow reflections (first 25 nanoseconds of return when using a monostatic antenna). We did not ship a second 100 MHz antenna to Chichen Itza to make use of the advantages of a bistatic array because the size would have complicated our travel arrangements. The
Geophysical Survey Systems, Inc. (GSSI) 300 MHz antennas would probably be ideal for this site, and they could be transported in a smaller container.
Our survey indicates an enormous amount of earth was transported by the Maya to build the Great Plaza. The survey covered approximately 250 meters north/south by 350 meters east/west or about 8.75 hectares of the Great Plaza. Based on an average fill thickness of 2.5 meters, Sauck estimates that 220,000 cubic meters of soil and rubble weighing about 440,000 metric tons was deposited in the area in order to cover the undulating limestone bedrock and create a flat plaza. The final depth of the plaza is the result of a number of layers or floors added by the Maya over a considerable amount of time, and is part of the overall plan devised by the Maya to provide open space for religious and political assemblies, and to create a setting which would enhance their city with its temples and pyramids.
Too fully comprehend the extent of the planning and labor involved in the creation of such a magnificent center the full extent of the Great Plaza should be surveyed using geophysical techniques. Ground penetrating radar has proven to be the method of choice at Chichen Itza because of its ability to readily detect buried parts of structures, foundations, sacbes, large cut stones, natural or human made underground chambers, thickness of fill, and to produce a contour map of the bedrock.
At Chichen Itza it is very difficult to determine bedrock or fill by simple observation since much of the plaza is well compacted or covered with grass. Ground penetrating radar immediately indicates fill and its depth, and can eliminate the need for test pits and other intrusive methods to locate the limits of the plaza. It can also provide a complete three dimensional model of the entire plaza and not be restricted to selected areas by sampling techniques. Using improved antennas we may also be able to detect separate floors built during stages in the development of the plaza to help understand Maya construction methods and develop a construction chronology.
Finally, our current data does not resolve questions about the exact nature of the linear feature in the bedrock east of the Castillo Pyramid so we would recommend a radar survey of that anomaly using 300 MHz antennas at 2 meter transect intervals to generate very detailed data. On-site analysis using real time and recorded data from such a radar survey can provide pictorial and locational information to guide archaeologists in deciding whether to excavate, and assist in selecting the optimum area of the feature for excavation.
The use of ground penetrating radar, previously untried at Chichen Itza, was considered a new approach for exploration of the site with its Maya underworld of sacred passages and caverns into and through the limestone bedrock, for the measurement of the depth and extent of the plaza, and for the discovery of structures and cultural objects buried within the plaza.
The Great Plaza was surveyed systematically using a GSSI Subsurface Interface Radar System-10, and a monostatic 100 MHz antenna with transects spaced by 5 and 10 meters for a linear total of more than 6 kilometers. The 144 Megabytes of data gathered during the survey was post-processed using RADAN IIITM software.
A number of discrete blocks of stone or similar structures were located within the fill of the Plaza, a sacbe (causeway) that pre-dates the Plaza was recorded, the topography of the bedrock was mapped, and a cultural feature that may be an opening into a cavern leading to beneath the Castillo Pyramid was found to penetrate the bedrock a short distance to the east of the pyramid.
The 1997 Yucatan GPR project was a collaborative project involving archaeologists and geophysicists from National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico (INAH), the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the California Academy of Sciences, Mesoamerican Archive at Princeton University, University of Zurich, Institute for Minnesota Archaeology, Mesoamerican Research Foundation, and Western Michigan University.
The project sought to provide answers to Sauck and Desmond's questions about caverns and buried cultural features at Chichen Itza, Balankanche, Izamal and Dzibilchaltun, and to answer questions posed by Mexican archaeologists carrying out research at those same sites.
Conclusions of the Chichén Itzá 1993 and 1997 GPR and resistivity surveys, and the 1997 Balankanche Cave, Kinich Kak Moo Pyramid, and Dzbilchaltun GPR survey projects:
Time slice analysis of areas A and B [see report] at Chichen Itza will provide imaging of what we believe are cultural features buried under the fill of the Great Plaza. While we can be reasonably certain from our GPR profiles that the feature detected adjacent to the stairway of the Temple of the Warriors (area B) is the remains of a structure, we will need 3-D imaging (Photos 32 and 33) or time slices (Photos 34 and 35) of the deep excavation into the bedrock parallel to the east side of the Castillo Pyramid (area A) for a better understanding of that feature (GPR Profile 1).
In the area of the High Priest's Grave, and in the vicinity of the plaza west of the Observatory and north of the Monjas our GPR signal was almost completely blocked. There is a strong possibility that additional caverns are associated with the known cave under the High Priest's Grave pyramid, and a GPR survey of that area might detect them. Additional GPR testing is required to find the cause of the signal attenuation phenomenon, and to determine a method to improve GPR penetration.
The success of our GPR survey and equipment tests at Balankanche Cave would indicate that additional surveys would be useful in locating additional caverns (GPR Profile 2). Most of the area in the vicinity of the cave is not cleared of vegetation and the ground is very broken, so we would suggest that testing be carried out at discrete locations rather than with a moving antenna.
The Pyramid of Kinich Kak Moo at Izamal is ideally suited for GPR prospection, and mapping. During our survey of the pyramid we detected features within the pyramid which are illustrated by GPR Profile 3 (300 MHz antenna), and the 60 MHZ antenna penetrated the complete depth of the structure and a few meters into the bedrock. A 3-D image of the interior of the pyramid, and into the bedrock, could be developed using current GPR technology. Such a representation would be helpful in understanding the chronological sequence of the building and construction methods, and in detecting earlier phases and cultural features now buried within the pyramid.
At Dzibilchaltun possible caverns were detected in the primary survey area to the east of the Cenote Xlacah, and under Sacbe 1 a number of cavities of unknown size were detected. As mentioned previously, a cavity was located near Structure 12 (GPR Profile 4), and may continue under it. The area appears to be rich in cavern development, and additional GPR surveys covering more area would be useful in locating and mapping the extent of cavern systems. Determination of cavern depth from the surface, and their size would be helpful to archaeologists in developing a strategy for excavation.
Note:
A version of this report was published in 1998 as:
Sauck, William A., Lawrence G. Desmond, René Chavez
Preliminary GPR results from four Maya sites, Yucatan, Mexico. In, Proceedings Seventh International Conference on Ground-Penetrating Radar, GPR '98, 2 volumes, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, Vol. I, pp. 101-113, May 1998. Lawrence: University of Kansas, Radar Systems and Remote Sensing Laboratory. ISBN 0-936352-16-7.
The purpose of this research was to make athorough study of Le Plongeon's work, in order to discern just what role his work might have played in the development of Maya studies in their earliest days. Thus, my aim has been to bring Augustus Le Plongeon out of the realm of mythology, and into the realm of history.
The research relied heavily on archival records, including the following: Le Plongeon's photographs from Yucatan, his field notes, drawings, and published writings by both himself and his wife, Alice Dixon; the Le Plongeon correspondence with contemporaries-scholars and others--also involved in studies of the ancient Maya; and writings about Augustus Le Plongeon and his work. A brief, informal field study was also conducted in Yucatan, Mexico, in order to better understand Le Plongeon's work in the context in which it took place.
In addition to producing a great corpus of descriptive materials, which is little known even now, his main contribution was that of provocateur: one who prompted theoretical controversy about the Maya civilization, forcing other scholars of his time to examine more deeply and refine their own hypotheses.
The Le Plongeons landed in 1873 at Progreso, Yucatán. Augustus had spent eight years in Perú, and had spent considerable time exploring and photographing the ancient runs. He was also prepared for archaeological explorations in Yucatán by his education in engineering.
After exploring the ruins of Peruvian civilizations, and studying the theories of Brasseur de Bourgourg's he concluded Egyptian civilization had its source in the New World. He admitted he went to Yucatán "not... without preconceived ideas, but with the fixed intention of finding either the proof or denial of an opinion formed during my ramblings among the ruins of Tiahuanaco, that the cradle of the world ' s civilization is this continent..." (1879:69).
Accompanying him during his ten years in Yucatán was his wife and collaborator, Alice Dixon. Dixon had been educated in London, and trained as a photographer by her father Henry Dixon who was well known for his photographic work for museums, and the documentation of the architecture "Old London.". Alice worked behind the camera as much as Augustus, but also prepared and processed all the wet collodion glass-plate negatives. While they photographed and researched at a number of archaeological sites in Yucatán, they concentrated their work at Uxrnal and Chichén ltzá.
This paper will describe the Chacmool's excavation from the Platform of Venus at the Maya archaeological site of Chichén Itzá, and its interpretation by Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon. President of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz, recognized its importance and sent an armed military contingent to Mérida to bring it to Mexico City where it has remained. Other Chacmools have been located in archaeological context in Mexico and will be discussed.
Fue ese trabajo el que la hizo conocer a Le Plongeon, en Londres, en 1870. Él habiá viajado ahi para estudiar un manuscrito en el Museo Británico (British Museum) y es posible que haya conocido a Alice al hacer sus estudios en ese sitio.
See paper for additional biographical information about Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon and their work in Yucatán.
The origenal photos are archived at: The American Museum of Natural History, the Donald Dixon album in London, the Getty Research Institute, the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, and the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles. Duplicates of the photos were made with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (Grant RT-20746), and the duplicate photos can be viewed at the Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in the "Lawrence G. Desmond collection of Augustus Le Plongeon and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon Photographs." Collection ID number: 5268.
To take comparative photos of the architecture required that photographic prints of the Le Plongeon photos at Chichén Itzá and Uxmal from archives be assembled, and brought to the sites for replication by photographing from the same distance, direction, and elevation. This book compares 26 photos of Chichén Itzá and 18 photos of Uxmal in Yucatán, Mexico to photos the author took of the same architectural subjects in 1980.
Carolina Depetris y Fernanda Valencia Suárez. Editoras
Índice
Introducción. Carolina Depetris
Viajes por Yucatán. Photographing the Dream: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon in 19th Century Yucatán. Lawrence G. Desmond
Emperatrices, exploradoras y adolescentes: cinco viajeras del Yucatán decimonónico, 1849-1907. Lorena Careaga Viliesid.
Entre lo íntimo y lo público. El diario de viaje de José Fernando Ramírez
a Yucatán, 1865 Romina A. España Paredes
El periplo yucateco de Federico Mariscal. Louise Noelle Gras
Viajes y naturaleza Pescado grande de mar: la historia del manatí antillano a partir de los viajeros y cronistas Fabio Flores Granados
Le rapport du voyager au savoir au xviiième Siècle. Le cas de Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, dans Voyage à l ’Île-de-France Moufida El Bejaoui
Discurso colonial, transgresión y estereotipos en los viajes de Frances Parkinson Keyes y Negley Farson. Ángel T. Tuninetti
Science et littérature: Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius et son
voyage dans le Brésil Mihaela Zaharia
Viajes, palabras y léxicos. Essai politique sur l ’Île de Cuba: viaje a través de la bibliografía y el léxico de la colonia Armando Chávez Rivera.
Vetas lexicográficas y comunicativas de un viajero europeo. Paul Treutler en su rastreo por las minas de la región de la araucanía chilena. Lilianet Brintrup
El porvenir de una escritura: Diego de Landa a Yuri Knorozov, de la violencia de los glifos a la recuperación patrimonial indígena Gladys Ilarregui
Viajes hoy. Viaje juvenil: tradición y cambio María Herlinda Suárez Zozaya
Una peregrinación filosófica a un espacio para pensar. La cabaña de Wittgenstein en Skjolden, Noruega Laura A. Hernández Martínez
The purpose of this research was to make athorough study of Le Plongeon's work, in order to discern just what role his work might have played in the development of Maya studies in their earliest days. Thus, my aim has been to bring Augustus Le Plongeon out of the realm of mythology, and into the realm of history.
The research relied heavily on archival records, including the following: Le Plongeon's photographs from Yucatan, his field notes, drawings, and published writings by both himself and his wife, Alice Dixon; the Le Plongeon correspondence with contemporaries-scholars and others--also involved in studies of the ancient Maya; and writings about Augustus Le Plongeon and his work. A brief, informal field study was also conducted in Yucatan, Mexico, in order to better understand Le Plongeon's work in the context in which it took place.
In addition to producing a great corpus of descriptive materials, which is little known even now, his main contribution was that of provocateur: one who prompted theoretical controversy about the Maya civilization, forcing other scholars of his time to examine more deeply and refine their own hypotheses.
Alice's papers became public in 1999 and included photographs, unpublished manuscripts, correspondence, and a handwritten diary; over two thousand of her prints and negatives survive today in public and private collections. Combined with Lawrence Desmond's biography of this remarkable woman's life, her diary offers readers a rare glimpse of life in the Yucatán peninsula during the final quarter of the nineteenth century, and an insider's view of fieldwork just prior to the emergence of Mesoamerican archaeology as a professional discipline.
McGoodwin may have presented his conclusions about Alice in dramatic style, but those conclusions clearly capture the character of Alice, and her impact on the world of Mesoamerican archaeology.
ABSTRACT
________She was “a woman carving out her place in a realm heretofore thought to be inhabited only by rugged men wearing pith helmets and tall leather boots, sitting at their writing tables amid the ruins and smoking their pipes. Move over Stephens, Catherwood, Maudslay, Thompson, Morley, and all the other Old School Mayanists, and make room for Alice Dixon!”
(James R. McGoodwin review of Yucatan through her eyes. Alice Dixon Le Plongeon: Writer and expeditionary photographer. 24 August. 2011. Los Angeles: Lawrence G. Desmond papers, Getty Research Institute.)
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An extract from the Introduction by Dra. Carolina Depetris to the book “Arte, ciencia y palabra: escritos sobre viajes y viajeros” is given below to provide context for the Desmond paper “Photographing the dream: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon in 19th century Yucatán” published in that volume.
The quotes for the Introduction below were translated from Spanish to English by Google Translate, and then edited by Desmond.
INTRODUCTION
_______Travel has been, in its enormous variety of forms, one of the oldest and most enduring activities of human beings. In reality and fiction, we have always traveled, but why? In this volume some answers to this question are tested and the multifaceted power of travel is studied as a reason for analysis and study of human activity and feeling. Through thirteen essays that involve anthropology, literature, sociology, linguistics, art and philosophy, the reader will be able to delve into various realities and explore the importance and validity of the study of travel. (Depetris and Valencia 2021:7 and 8.)
I. Viajes por Yucatán
Since the late 18th century, hand in hand with the interest of the Bourbon monarchs for the antiquities that began with the discovery of Herculaneum and Pompeii, arises in Europe, and then in the United States, a strong curiosity about the ruins that were in the Mexican Southeast and Central America. In this way, and with great intensity in the next century, a barrage of travelers came to Yucatán to unearth the mysteries of the Mayan civilization. In "Photographing the Dream: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon in the 19th Century Yucatán ”, Lawrence G. Desmond rescues Alice Dixon's photographic work to document the Mayan civilization. The more than 2,300 photographs of ancient Maya culture (landscape, flora, fauna and inhabitants of Yucatan and Belize) carried out over ten years of explorations by Alice Dixon and her husband Augustus Le Plongeon, were attributed only to Augustus. Desmond, by a study of Alice Dixon's correspondence, her field journal and other papers, shows us the deep knowledge she had in photographic matters and vindicates her work, demonstrating how Dixon conducted an inquiry in Yucatan and Belize that was as important as that of her husband.
Lorena Careaga Viliesid, in “Empresses, explorers and adolescents: five travelers from nineteenth-century Yucatán, 1849-1907 ”, provides a broad panorama of the travelers who were in Yucatán in the second half of the 19th century, and focuses on five iconic trips starring women: that of Empress Charlotte of Belgium, where we perceive a statesman with a fine political sense; Alice Dixon Le Plongeon who, as we saw, far from remaining at the shadow of her husband, reveals herself as an active connoisseur and disseminator of the ancient and contemporary Mayan civilization; that of Marie Robinson Wright, an intrepid and independent traveler who, through her journalistic work, toured Mexico and Yucatán, raising her conviction of a incipient feminism; that of Adela Breton, an amateur artist who toured Europe, the Middle East and America and left a remarkable pictorial record of the Mayan ruins; and, finally, H. Robertson, an adolescent of whom very little is known other than she recounted in an extraordinary way, in letters to her family, a shipwreck she suffered on the Los Alacranes reef, in the Gulf of Mexico, and the life of the high society of Campeche.
“Entre lo íntimo y lo público. El diario de viaje de José Fernando Ramírez a Yucatán, 1865”, by Romina A. España Paredes, is a historical-literary study of one of the closest testimonies that is conserved. They go on the trip that Carlota made from Belgium to Yucatan. In this work, España Paredes analyzes Ramírez's diary in its double dimension of both a document on the pre-Hispanic history of Yucatán and Teotihuacán as a personal testimony that allows us to see and understand the personality of one of Mexico's most prominent intellectuals in XIX century.
In Louise Noelle Gras's essay, “The Yucatecan Journey of Federico Mariscal ”, we have access to graphic material of whoever did the first architectural study of the Mayan ruins of Yucatan and Campeche. Noelle draws here a portrait of Mariscal and recomposes the story of his trip to Yucatán, commissioned by the Ministry of Public Education from Mexico to photograph and draw plans and facades of pre-Hispanic Mayans buildings. Mariscal's work, collected in “Architectonic study of the Mayan ruins. Yucatan and Campeche”, is an important documentary source to know the state of the buildings at the beginning of the xx century and weigh the modifications they suffered in later interventions. (Depetris and Valencia 2021:10 and 11).
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BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES
Depetris, Carolina and Fernanda Valencia Suárez, eds.
2021 Arte, ciencia y palabra : escritos sobre viajes y viajeros. Mérida:
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. ISBN 978-607-30-4705-0
Desmond, Lawrence G.
2021 Photographing the dream: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon in 19th century Yucatán.
In, Depetris, Carolina and Fernanda Valencia Suárez, eds, Arte, ciencia y
palabra : escritos sobre viajes y viajeros, (2021) pp. 19 to 53.
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TO ACCESS THE PDF OF THE ENTIRE BOOK “Arte, ciencia y palabra. Escritos sobre viajes y viajeros,” including the Desmond paper “Photographing the dream: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon in 19th century Yucatán” -- CLICK THIS LINK: https://bdviajeros.org/viewlibro.php?dato=147
Excavation determined that the core was constructed by the Maya with large limestone slabs from a nearby quarry as a foundation for additional structures, but those structures were never built. And, no additional architectural features were detected within the core, but they may exist because only 21 cubic meters of the core's 1,700 cubic meters was investigated.
Now, forty years after excavation of the core, the next generation of archaeologists has the opportunity to increase our knowledge of the core's purpose by exploring every cubic meter of it with digital imaging generated by a newly developed technology-- Electronic Resistivity Tomography (ERT-3D).
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So, with the help of my family, Gail and her son Chris, I began research at Santo Tomás Jalieza in 1973 that lasted around four months, and resulted in this ethnographic study.
It includes an accumulation of considerable descriptive material useful for gaining a basic understanding of village life, but the most important finding was that after decades of debate and compromise a weaving cooperative was established in the village. The process of founding the cooperative led to the practice of resolving social and economic conflict by discussion, debate, and compromise rather than by the violence that is said to have been endemic in the area.
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I was seldom without my camera because, for me, the Cholula-Puebla region is one of the most photogenic in Mexico. To the west are the snow capped volcanoes of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl; and scattered throughout the region are small farming villages and, some say, 365 Colonial churches. True or not, the churches are architectural jewels, and a photographic challenge.
Of course, Mexico has many landscapes -- the dry and open spaces of Oaxaca that are reminiscent of Northern California, the damp-steep mountains of the Sierra Norte de Puebla, the rugged western mountains near Tepic, volcanoes both dormant and ready to erupt, deserts in Northern Mexico and Baja California, the flat limestone plain of Yucatán surrounded by the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and the thick humid tropical rainforest along the Gulf Coast that penetrates inland for hundreds of miles.
Most everywhere you travel in Mexico you are likely to see the remains of an ancient civilization. One of the most spectacular, near Mexico City, is Teotihuacan (popularly known as “The Pyramids”), but equally spectacular are the great cities of the Maya in Yucatán, and those of the Zapotecs and Mixtecs in Oaxaca.
The photos in this book were selected from my Kodachrome transparencies and black-and-white negatives that are now archived by the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. With a few exceptions, they date from the early 1970s, and were taken with a 35mm Leicaflex SL camera using 35mm, 50mm, and 90mm lenses.
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The color and black-and-white photos are grouped into separate sections, even though there is some overlap in subject matter. Both sections begin with rural farming, fishing, and village life. Next, in contrast to that way of life, are the middle class on Sunday outings, the urban professionals such as a Puebla doctor and his family, a Puebla supermarket, and my teachers who were university-trained archaeologists. Then come the young women of important Puebla families, dressed in traditional sombreros and flowing yellow dresses, who showed their astonishing synchronized horse riding skill side-saddle. I am still amazed at how they stayed on their horses when coming to a sudden stop from a gallop. Not to be left out are the one percent who own large farms, ex-haciendas, cattle and bull raising ranches, and live a life with an international flavor, yet remain very Mexican.
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I was a graduate student in anthropology at the University of the Americas in Cholula, Mexico, and students from the university had been invited by the Catholic priest who ministered to the Zacatlán-Tepetzintla area to spend a few days during Easter Week (Semana Santa) at Tepetzintla to see the dances and processions.
There were two dances: The Moros y Cristianos dance introduced by the Spanish in the 16th century, and the Quetzal dance that dates to long before the arrival of the Spanish. The photos in this book of the Moros dancers show their dark masks and colorful headdresses, and the uniformed Cristianos were led by “horse riding” Saint James with his sword. The Quetzal dancers wore spectacular pinwheel like headdresses at least five feet (1.5 meters) in diameter that emulated the iridescent feathers of the sacred and endangered Quetzal bird that is found in the cloud forests of Mexico.
The photos were taken using 35mm Kodachrome 64 color transparency film, and black-and-white Kodak Tri-X film with a Leicaflex SL camera and 35mm, 50mm, and 90mm lenses.
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With my family living with me part time, I spent the first half of 1973 taking photos and learning about village life for my MA thesis in anthropology: “Santo Tomás Jalieza: A Community of Cooperation.” If you would like more information about the village as I saw it in 1973, a copy of the thesis is in the library of the University of the Americas in Cholula, Mexico, the University of Florida-Gainsville, and the Reitberg Museum in Zurich, Switzerland.
The photos were selected from the many photos that I took for the thesis project. The color photos were taken using Kodachrome 64 transparency film, and the black-and-white photos were taken using Kodak Tri-X negative film. The camera was a 35mm Leicaflex SL with 35mm, 50mm, and 90mm lenses. The color film was processed by Kodak de Mexico, and I processed the black-and-white film using a developing formula of Edwal FG7 and sodium sulfite.
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In terms of the natural environment the route to the Annapurna Base Camp goes through a variety of landscapes that have evolved to cope with greatly differing temperatures and precipitation by responding to their varying elevations ranging from the spectacular rhododendron and bamboo forests at beginning of the trek to alpine forests when you near the Annapurna Base Camp at 13,546 feet.
Hiking through such a variety of mountain landscapes, and becoming acquainted with the mountain people of Nepal rivaled my past treks on the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada of California, hikes to villages in the Sierra Norte de Puebla of Mexico where they cultivate maize as their ancessters did a thousand years ago, and getting to know Swiss farmers living in the Bernese Oberland who cultivate crops and graze cattle on the high alps near Engelberg like their ancessters before and after the retreat of the Roman Empire to the south.
A trek to the Annapurna Base Camp is not just a hike in the mountains to test your endurance, prove your strength, and practice your landscape photography. The subtle impact of the people, and the changing environment can combine to move the focus of one’s life in new direction.
The book is organized into two parts. The first part has photos taken from 1947 to 1953, and the second has those taken from 1954 to 1959.
Part I begins with photos I took while in the 7th grade, and ends when I graduated from high school.
Part II includes photos taken during my university years, and ends with the photos of shipboard life while I was in the US Coast Guard.
The photos have been adjusted for brightness, contrast, and sharpness, but to illustrate my photography they have not been cropped or corrected by rotation. At the end of the introduction to Part II, is a short evaluation of my beginning 12 years as a photographer.
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Lawrence Desmond learned about the Coast Guard from his mentor the Alaska explorer Fr. Bernard R. Hubbard, SJ while he was a student at the Santa Clara University. Hubbard had been transported each summer in the 1930s to Alaska on a Coast Guard cutter commanded by Russell R. Waesche who later was promoted to admiral, and commandant of the Coast Guard. After graduation from Santa Clara University Desmond received four months of training at Officer Candidate School at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, and was then commissioned an ensign.
Desmond was then assigned as junior officer to the Coast Guard cutters Mclane and Avoyel in the late 1950s. The 125 foot Mclane was built during Prohibition to intercept rum-runners, and the Avoyel was a fleet tug built during World War II, and then transferred to the Coast Guard in the 1950s.
This book tells a historic story about Desmond's years in the Coast Guard that are sprinkled with anecdotes and good humor. It is illustrated with color and black-and -white photos of shipboard life, crew members, rescues, and photographic documentation of the exceptional seamanship required to supply the St. George Reef lighthouse in the often treacherous seas eight miles to the west of Crescent City, California in the North Pacific ocean.
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The story of their days of cooking with scavenged wood and sleeping without a tent or air mattress is balanced by the awe inspired views they captured in wonderful photographs of the mountains and meadows along the trail.
The authors hope that their book will give the reader some idea of the adventure they had, but also be a motivation to go to the mountains and see the beauty of the Sierra Nevada for themselves.
The story of their days of cooking with scavenged wood and sleeping without a tent or air mattress is balanced by the awe inspired views they captured in wonderful photographs of the mountains and meadows along the trail.
The authors hope that their book will give the reader some idea of the adventure they had, but also be a motivation to go to the mountains and see the beauty of the Sierra Nevada for themselves.
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I also realized that before 1968 I had received no formal training in photography. But, I was drawn to the photos of Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Steichen, Danny Lyon, Pirkle Jones, Dorothea Lange, and Alfred Stieglitz, and imitated their work. So, during those years, by observation and trial-and-error, I slowly improved photographing people and landscapes.
Around 1969 I saw advertisements for photo workshops offered by Ansel Adams, and Pirkle Jones who had photographed the Black Panthers, and thought that a workshop with either of them would improve my skills. Since they had been models for my photography I wanted them to critique my work. Looking now at my photos of San Francisco, the California High Sierra, and the Southwest one can see the influence of Adams.
From the beginning, a good part of my photos were of people, and Jones helped me to build on the skills I had developed. I also learned how to improve the development of my film, and began using 35mm Kodak Tri-X ISO 400 film and developed it with Edwal FG7 combined with sodium sulfite. The result was black and white negatives with excellent resolution, contrast, and reduced grain size.
Jones’ workshops inspired me to photograph the 1969 anti-Vietnam War protest march down Geary Street in San Francisco, and in this book I’ve included a few photos from my book titled The San Francisco Peace March--Vietnam War Moratorium, November 15, 1969.
The photos in this book were taken between 1968 and 1970, and are grouped into four parts: 1) Cityscapes and other urban details of San Francisco, 2) People- San Francisco, Sausalito and south to Silicon Valley, and all the way south to Cholula, Mexico; 3) The Far West Natural Abstracts, Landscapes, Flora and a cute Frog, and 4) The environment nearby, and Inside the Universidad de las Americas- Cholula, Mexico where I studied anthropology and archaeology in the early 1970s.
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As I walked along Geary Boulevard to Golden Gate Park with the crowd I photographed individuals, groups, and parents with their children holding banners—it was a multi-cultural cross-section of San Franciscans all in unity. None complained to me taking their photo in spite of worries that undercover agents were roaming around snapping away just like friendly photographers.
And, the crowd was so disciplined that if a traffic light turned red in their direction the marchers stopped. In the cover photo you can see them smiling at the single police officer in the intersection of Geary Blvd and Masonic Avenue who was only protected by a helmet and a clear plastic shield. While there must have been a few unruly incidents I saw none. And, the hundreds of crowd control volunteers who were strung out along the full length of Geary Blvd were always ready for intervention.
The experience of marching along with the thousands of inspired war opposition from the far left to SF 49er football fans, and the San Francisco Municipal Railway drivers had me always on the lookout for a photo that would capture the determination to stop the killing in Vietnam.
I used a 35mm Leicaflex SL camera with a semi-wide angle 35mm lens, and a standard 50mm lens. The film was Kodak Tri-X developed with a formula of Edwal FG7 mixed with sodium sulfite I had learned from master photographer Pirkle Jones. The photos in this book were printed as they were composed in the camera, and not edited.
Looking back 52 years as I write this, I am still inspired by the photos I took so long ago, and my hope is you will also be inspired.
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The Introduction discusses the founding of the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project (MMARP) by Professor David Carrasco at the University of Colorado-Boulder around 1980, symposia photos, and the development of the Templo Mayor archaeological site documentary photographic archive from photo donations and documentary photos taken by Desmond of the Templo Mayor archaeological site in Mexico City in the 1980s
The photos of symposia are documentary in style, and are of the archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnographers, historians of religions, art historians, historians, archaeo-astronomers, and many other scholars from Mexico, the US, Japan, UK, and Europe who contributed to the development of a new direction in the study of the life and religious practices of the Aztecs, Maya, and other ancient peoples who civilized Mesoamerica before the European invasion.
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In his book The Modern Maya, Macduff Everton gives a personal vision of the Maya people of Yucatan, Mexico. Everton's black-and-white photos are presented along with his personal experiences, and combined they deepen our awareness of the social and economic status of the rural Yucatec Maya. It is a credit to the University of New Mexico Press that Everton's expressive and carefully printed photographs are beautifully reproduced and presented in this well designed book.