Maya Archaeologist

by J. Eric S. Thompson

An intensely human account of "incidents of excavation" of ancient Maya cities by one of the world's foremost authorities on the Maya Indians of Mexico and Central America. With humor and warmth, J. Eric S. Thompson relates his experiences from the mid-twenties to the mid-thirties during many expeditions to the Maya area-l—when, he says, the attitudes and pattern of daily life were perhaps closer to those of the time of the Spanish Conquest than to those of the 1960's. The remote parts of the country were still remote, and the Mayas in their villages lived in practically the same way their forefathers had lived for the past three centuries.

There are exciting moments, as when "a little gem of an ornament" of apple-green jade in the form of a human head was uncovered. There are breath-taking views of the magnificent stone cities such as Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Copan, Tikal, and Quirigua. And there are tantalizingly intimate glimpses of the famous archaeologists who probed this intriguing pre-Columbian civilization: Morley, Gann, Ruppert, Vaillant, Spinden, Stromsvik, Roys, and many others.

While Mr. Thompson declares that this is not a history of Maya civilization, there is gained in the reading a wealth of information about the Mayas, past and present. It is surely one of the most delightful accounts of adventures among the Mayas since John Lloyd Stephens' classic Travels in Yucatán.

Genres: Archaeology

284 pages, Hardcover

First published December 30, 1974

About the author

Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson was an archaeologist specializing in the Mayan areas of Mexico and Central America, who was long associated with the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Sir Thompson also was awarded the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, commander of the Spanish Order of Isabel la Católica, and Fellow of the British Academy.

Reviews

[Jean-Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

J. Eric S. Thompson first traveled to the Yucatan as a junior archaeologist working for the Carnegie Institution in 1926. Merida had only only one hotel and from Merida to Chichen Itza there was only a railway, but transportation by mule was more common than by train or Model T, and occasionally a boat or a canoe came in handy. Gramophone concerts in the old Maya ball court, and a swim in a cenote, which may once have been a site of human sacrifice, after a day's work.

Chichen Itza is the most famous of the Maya ruins, but Thompson ventures to lesser known sites in what is now Belize, along with Guatemala and Honduras, with equal vigor and anticipation. The book reminded of Agatha Christie's Come, Tell Me How You Live, but with a sharper focus on the actual work and finds—mainly potsherds, jade, flint, and hieroglyphs, since due to the damp climate very few examples of Maya textiles and woodwork have survived—rather than domestic details. Not that there aren't plenty of ancillary details, ranging from the daily life of a chiclero to an imagined ancient Maya sacrificial procession, and beyond. After the American Civil War, for example, a handful of Confederate families settled in Belize as a protest against Reconstruction, only to fail—refusing to make rum when the price of sugar slumped—and return to the US with their tail between their legs. Once a loser, always a loser, as their descendants continue to prove today. Thompson's views tend to be much more palatable than Christie's, although there are exceptions: "It has been claimed that the Maya were slightly effeminate; in these constant alterations to rooms, perhaps they shared a trait with the majority of housewives." Ummm, what?

Maya archaeology has always fascinated me, and having read Jungle of Stone, the John L. Stevens and Frederick Catherwood biography, this was a fascinating supplement, even if discoveries made since the book was published understandably contradict some of Thompson's certainties. It's not an exhaustive history of the Maya and doesn't aim to be and and only occasionally—such as during the chapter on the modern Maya—did I find myself wishing he would get back to the dig.