John Lloyd StephensBorn 28 Nov 1805; died 12 Oct 1852 at age 46.American traveler and archaeologist whose exploration of Maya ruins in Central America and Mexico (1839-40 and 1841-42) generated the archaeology of Middle America. In 1939, as a lawyer ostensibly on a mission for the U.S. State Department, Stephens went in search of Mayan ruins, which were then all but unknown. He was accompanied by architect Frederick Catherwood, whose meticulous drawings illustrate Stephens' subsequent books. In Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatán, Stephens described coming upon the ruined city of Copan, which he found so captivating that he promptly purchased the site. It is now owned by the Honduran government. |
