Incidents of Travel in Yucatan
Volume I and II – Complete with the Original Illustrations
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- 8,49 €
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- 8,49 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
Both volumes of John Lloyd Stephens epic accounts of the Yucatan are united in this single volume, complete with over 100 illustrations of encounters on his journeys in Central America.
Prior to the 1840s, when J. L. Stephens published this superb account of his explorations, the Yucatan was only crudely charted by Western explorers. Yet their descriptions of the odd ruins and beautiful landscape intrigued the young John Lloyd Stephens, who spent years yearning to explore and better chart the faraway lands. After a number of years spent traversing Europe and Egypt, Stephens was in 1839 commissioned as a Special Ambassador to the Central Americas.
Accompanied by his friend, the architect and draughtsman Frederick Catherwood, Stephens set off for the wilderness of the Yucatan, landing in what is today Belize. It wasn't long before the pair encountered the first Mayan ruins: the city of Copan. Captivated by the unique architecture and distinctive cultural remnants, the two pressed further inland.
Accounts of the cities of Palenque, Quiriguá and Uxmal are included in this edition, which reprints the many illustrations Frederick Catherwood made of the buildings, items and landscapes encountered. The great temples of the Mayan cities, the detailing of Mayan seals and monuments, as well as the stone houses of those in the upper strata of society, were drawn with an intricate and accurate detail.
Prior to Stephens publishing the accounts of his travels, it was assumed the structures found in Central America had simply been assembled by either Europeans or Asian visitors. It was not until Stephens' immense detailing of the artistic and architectural accomplishments that the Mayans were confirmed as a civilization of great sophistication. The two also noticed the calendar and numerical system the Mayans developed, but it was not until much later that this knowledge was fully deciphered.
Following Stephens' explorations, the Mesoamericas became a place of great interest to North American and European intellectuals. Numerous expeditions and archaeological treks were encouraged by his findings, and today many of the sites visited by Stephens are popular tourist destinations.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As director of the Ocean Steam Navigating Company and president of the Panama Railway Company, Stephens (1805-1852) knew a lot about travel, and he wrote about it. His first book, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, went through 12 printings and earned its author $15,000 in its first three months, making him one of America's first bestselling writers. Edgar Allen Poe called it "perhaps the most interesting book of travel ever published." This more seasoned and focused account of Stephens's second trip, originally published in 1843, is packed with detailed accounts of travels in newly discovered Mayan ruins and with equally fascinating lithographs by his travel companion, Frederick Catherwood. Through Stephens's eyes, readers see Yucatan villages of 150 years ago, when Indians used cacao beans instead of money in their marketplaces; a Catholic/indigenous hybrid funeral that seems no more barbaric than the crude medical treatments rendered by another of Stephens's travel companions, Dr. Cabot, on their Mayan guides. One of the first to acknowledge that indigenous Americans might have built the great American pyramids and temples, not Egyptians, Greeks or one of the lost tribes of Israel, Stephens voiced a rare, nonjudgmental viewpoint in a time when European cultural elitism was the unquestioned norm. Not just a curiosity for archeology buffs or cultural studies types, this is also an informative, intriguing guide for armchair travelers.
