Discovering, describing, purchasing

The nineteenth-century discovery and excavation of the Maya monuments of Central America is inseparably linked with the name of the US explorer and travel writer John Lloyd Stephens. Unlike many of the pre-disciplinary precursors of modern archaeology, Stephens is still revered by modern practitioners; for instance, distinguished Maya scholar Michael D Coe describes his travel books as ‘marking the very genesis of serious Maya research’, containing ‘almost prophetic insights’ into the lost civilization of Central America (Coe 1994, pp. 84–85). The present essay is, however, less concerned with echoing these well-deserved accolades, and more with analysing the literary, aesthetic and ideological concerns of Stephens’ two Latin American travel narratives, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (1841) and its sequel, Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan (1843). For although primarily remembered today as a pioneer of modern Mesoamerican archaeology, Stephens achieved celebrity in his lifetime as one of the most commercially successful travel writers of the nineteenth century.

Maya archaeology to this day enjoys a privileged place in the North American academy, and part of Stephens' seminal importance for this scholarly tradition doubtless lies in his establishment of what might be termed an ‘Americanist’ ideology in interpreting Maya high culture.