A great book on Yucatan

Plug for a great book:  Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, by John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood.

Published in 1841, it documents the travels of perhaps the first two Anglo-Americans to really explore Yucatan and Central America with a focus on archeology. Many of the Mesoamerican sites famous today -- Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Mayapan, Copán, Palenque -- they found through local word of mouth and rough overland travel.

The book itself weighs a few pounds and consists of 600+ pages of dense print and illustrations.  It is hard to hold up in a hammock for longer than a few minutes.  Though fascinating, ten or fifteen pages is the perfect amount to read before falling into a nap.  So the book gets two thumbs up on that account alone.

I'd love to meet the authors.  They were very modern guys of their time.  Recounting the earliest history of interaction between Europeans and Mayans, they give no sense of glory to the events, making it clear that they involved a series of bloody little guerilla conflicts.  And their ethos re the archeological sites they found involved a certain amount of "if we can pry it loose, it's ours".  In addition to the archaeology, they give a wealth of info on daily life in Yucatan circa 1840.  I get the sense that they would be interesting people.

Since few in their right minds are going to actually read the book, I'll give just a sample here, describing the discovery of the two-headed jaguar statue at Uxmal:

"At a distance of sixty feet in a right line beyond this was a rude circular mound about six feet high ... we determined to open it.  It was a mere mass of earth and stones; and, on digging down to the depth of three or four feet, a sculptured monument was discovered ... it was found standing on its feet, in the position represented in the engraving.  It was carved out of a single block of stone, and measures three feet two inches in length and two in height.  It seems intended to represent a double-headed cat or lynx, and is entire with the exception of one foot which is a little broken.  The sculpture is rude.  It was too heavy to carry away.  We had raised it to the side of the mound for Mr. Catherwood to draw, and probably it remains there still."

Fortunately, it does remain!

Mr. Catherwood's drawing, and the sculptured monument today.