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71 ______________________________________ Adela rarely—if ever—passed up an opportunity to visit a site. En route to Chichén she stopped at what would be one of her favorite sites, Aké. Like many sites in Yucatán, the ruins were on the grounds of a hacienda where Adela might have stayed. As was often the case, the house itself was relatively small, much overshadowed by the main buildings where the henequen was produced. The ruins are adjacent to the production area, and part of the old tramway (primarily used to transport the henequen to the processing plant) goes to the top of the main pyramid. The most notable feature of the ruins is a long low building topped by columns or katunes, remnants of what might have been a grand colonnade overlooking the main plaza. Charnay had drawn these katunes; Adela painted them also, from about the same place Charnay must have worked. Over the years Adela periodically raised the question of why some archaeologists did not choose Aké for their work instead of other sites that were less interesting (and less promising) in her eyes. Returning to Chichén had the advantage (or disadvantage) of its being known territory to her. Once again she stayed in Akab Dzib. The fleas and ticks were again awful. And, as in the previous year, her main work involved copying and working with the Maudslay plates. That year Thompson was in Mérida during at least part of the time Adela was at Chichén. Frederick Starr, Professor of Anthropology from the University of Chicago, visited Thompson at his home on the outskirts of Mérida. This was Starr’s first visit to Yucatán. Although his interest at that time lay more with physical anthropology and folklore, he continued to follow developments in archaeology. Chapter Thirteen The Professionalization of Adela I am sending you today a roll containing drawings on tracing paper made by Miss Breton. The monuments represented are so interesting that I am going to ask Dr. Willoughby to kindly have photographs made of the drawings for future publication. Please keep the drawings at the Museum until you hear from Miss Breton. —Zelia Nuttall to Miss Mead, October ,  72 Chapter Thirteen ______________________________________ I was much interested in Mr. Thompson’s work. I had never realized that it is his chosen life work. He has really done a great deal and has done it very well. His own house is built on an artificial and ancient mound; there are a number of others on his place, two of considerable size he is now having excavated little by little. These I went out to see. (Frederick Starr Field Notebooks, Feb. 1901, pp. 17–19, UC) Starr was obviously impressed by the extent of Thompson’s efforts both in Mérida and at Chichén. His farm at Chichen is close to the ruins and he has built it with some care and wants it to be a sort of scientific centre and meeting and stopping place for workers. E. W. Nelson and a companion are now there working at rodents: the English lady Miss Britain [sic] is there I believe and young Miss Thompson— both sketching and painting. (Ibid.) Starr also related that Thompson had employed “a very careful native [mestizo] artist who has made hundreds of folio plates in colors and India ink representing details of ornament, architectural details, objects, etc. . . . Among these plates were several wallpaintings at ——, his own discovery and yet unpublished and unannounced ; they are particularly interesting” (ibid.). The artist was Santiago Bolio, who had made copies of the murals of the Upper Temple of the Jaguars. The “discovery” may have been Chacmultún, which Adela would later visit. That season Adela continued her work in the Temple of the Jaguars, tracing and coloring the east wall of the fresco, which she referred to as the garden scene. “Many visitors and talking,” she reported, “and did little except a coloured drawing of the Door, looking outwards” (Carmichael 1973, 32). She also painted a view of the Akab Dzib that shows a corner of the building with vegetation growing from the roof. The building itself had obviously been cleared, and the painting shows only minimal vegetation and a well-cleared path to one of the doors. In March Adela left Chichén for Uxmal, where she stayed for ten days. Uxmal, another large site, is considerably different from Chichén but with some resonance of Chichén...

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