Alfred Maudslay and the Maya (review)

This is the first biography written about Alfred Maudslay (1850-1931), who was inspired to follow John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood in the next generation of exploration in the Maya world. The biographer and his subject seem a perfect match, since both men made major contributions to making possible the recent decipherment of the Maya glyphs. Even the two men's lives have parallels: they are both British, both became involved with Maya studies in their thirties, and both received institutional support for their work only later in their careers. Ian Graham's interest in Alfred Maudslay led him to locate a niece, who made many surviving papers and memorabilia available to him. On a solid documentary base of letters, journals, and publications by Maudslay, Graham wrote this biography years later, when his career allowed the time.

Graham begins with the Maudslay family's rise to wealth with inventions in machine engineering. Alfred initially intended a career in medicine, but health problems caused him to seek a warmer climate. He first visited Guatemala because of an interest in ornithology; while working in the Colonial Service in Fiji, he became interested in ethnography. In 1880 he decided to resign from the Colonial Service and to study antiquities in Guatemala. Unfortunately, no documents from 1880 survive to show this change of direction. Between 1881 and 1894, Maudslay undertook expeditions to major Maya sites, including Tikal and Palenque, at this own expense. Workers cleared jungle and rubble from monuments, which were then preserved by Maudslay in photographs, paper and plaster molds, and subsequent drawings. Graham's vivid account of these expeditions is the most fascinating part of the book. In his early forties, Maudslay married the granddaughter of New York founding father Gouverneur Morris, whose life and career Graham profiles. After living in Mexico, the Maudslays returned to live in England, where they spent busy years writing, translating, and finding a museum to hold Maudslay's enormous collection of sculpture, molds, and casts. The British Museum found the space.

Graham is complimentary, characterizing Maudslay as "the type of the true English gentleman" (p. 270). Graham characterizes criticism of him by one of his few critics, Mexican archeologist Leopoldo Batres, as motivated by jealousy. Batres opposed giving Maudslay permission to work in Oaxaca and accused the Englishman of destroying temples in order to ship sculptured lintels to England (p. 217). Later, Maudslay criticized Batres for removing the facing of a pyramid at Teotihuacán and taking carvings from their site that, Maudslay thought, were not in any danger of damage (p. 252). Graham points out a number of instances when Maudslay's views were validated by recent Maya studies. Most interesting among these is Maudslay's opposition to those who attributed the achievements of the Classic Maya to cultural diffusion from the Old World.

This handsome volume includes 48 pages of plates, primarily photographs taken by Maudslay. It is a readable book with frequent touches of wit from both Maudslay and Graham. Readers will not need advanced knowledge of archaeology or the Maya; the text is clear even when things such as the Maya calendar are presented. Although the biography does give a history of the development of archaeology, and Maya archaeology in particular, it does not focus on the history of Guatemala and Mexico in the late nineteenth century. Historians will find interesting testimony by Maudslay about the era, however—notably, the problem of securing workers. Maudslay did not leave private diaries, and the biography of this British gentleman scholar is primarily his public, professional life. A wide audience of general readers, students, and experts should enjoy Alfred Maudslay and the Maya.