1839 – 1842
Stephens and Catherwood
In 1839 President Martin Van Buren sends the American writer John Lloyd Stephens to Central America as special envoy. Stephens sails to Belize with the English architect and draughtsman Frederick Catherwood. Both have read Juan Galindo’s report on the ruins of Copán. They go there first, spend two weeks mapping the site, and Stephens buys the ruins for 50 dollars. While they travel, the Federal Republic of Central America falls apart in civil war.
A stela at Copán, drawn by Frederick Catherwood, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkWikimedia Commons, Frederick Catherwood, CC0 (Stela at Copan MET DP820949.jpg)
In 1840 Catherwood draws two stelae at Quiriguá. The two men cross the Guatemalan highlands by way of Iximche, Q'umarkaj and Zaculeu, visit Toniná and reach Palenque on 11 May 1840. There they draw the Temple of the Inscriptions, the Temple of the Cross and the Temple of the Sun. They go on to Uxmal. Stephens’s Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, with engravings after Catherwood’s drawings, appears in 1841 and sells widely.
The Palace at Palenque, engraved after a drawing by Frederick Catherwood for Stephens’s Incidents of Travel of 1841Wikimedia Commons, John Lloyd Stephens / Frederic Catherwood, Public domain (PALACE AT PALENQUE.jpg)
In October 1841 they return to Yucatán. Over the next months they record Mayapan, Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil, Labna, Chichen Itza and Tulum, several of them for the first time, for Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843). In 1844 Catherwood publishes 25 colour lithographs as Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan. The books argue that the ancestors of the Maya living in the region built the ruined cities, against theories that credited peoples from Europe or Asia.
El Castillo at Tulum, a lithograph from Catherwood’s Views of Ancient Monuments, 1844Wikimedia Commons, Frederick Catherwood, Public domain (TulumCatherwood1844.jpg)
Sources
- John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (1841).
- John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843).
- Peter O. Koch, John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood: Pioneers of Mayan Archaeology (2013).
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