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HACIENDA
CHICHEN: YUCATAN'S
1st. MAYAN
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
REASERCH HEADQUARTER
Hacienda Chichen housed archaeologists and Mayan scholars that
led in the 1920s by the Carnegie Institution's first Maya Research
Expedition in the
Yucatan. During this Maya
expedition program, many of today's cottages at the property were
built by the following famous scholars, whose works helped shaped
the current understanding of ancient
Mayan Civilization and legacy.
Their inspiration continues shaping the spirit and ambiance of this
Green
hotel
unique accommodations and
style of rooming. These are some of
the man and woman that help reconstruct
Chichen Itza Mayan Temples
in Yucatan, Mexico:
Sylvanus Griswold Morley , 1883-1948
Rumored to be Stephen Spielberg's prototype for archaeologist Indiana
Jones, Morley was born in 1883, in Pennsylvania and worked for
nearly three decades deciphering Maya hieroglyphs and excavating
Mayan
ruins in Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala. He developed an
interest in archaeology shortly after Harvard's Peabody Museum
received Thompson's treasure trove of artifacts from dredging of the
sacred well at Chichen Itza in 1904. Morley became a research
associate in 1915 for the Carnegie Institution and applied for the
position to head up their explorations in
Yucatan,
Southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Soon after, he presented
Carnegie with a proposal outlining a 20-year
plan to restore Chichen Itza to its former grandeur and to invite
tourists to become a part of that mix. Morley believed public
interest alone would help fund the project. He chose Chichen Itza
because it was close to Merida and easy to reach, thanks to governor
Felipe Carrillo Puerto's building of a new road connecting Merida
with the soon-to-be-famous tourist site. Morley always dressed the
part of the archaeologist, complete with pith helmet, but it is said
he hated the jungle. His dislike for the climate and surroundings
couldn't dampen his incredible enthusiasm for the
Maya civilization
however. After he had established himself at Chichen Itza to explore
the Mayan
ruins, local Maya leaders were glad to know him as the
unofficial spokesman for the Yucatecan Mayas from 1923 until his
death in 1948.
Edward Herbert
Thompson, 1856-1935
Edward Herbert Thompson was born on September 28, 1856, in Worcester,
Massachusetts. Thompson's work as an anthropologist started in 1879,
when he published his thoughts on how the Maya culture may have
originated from the continent of Atlantis.
Thompson spent 40 years studying
Mayan remains and the Mayan way of life. During this time, Thompson
lived closely with the Mayan local people, learning their language,
traditions, religion. Thompson was appointed vice consul
to the Yucatan in 1885. In 1895, a wealthy Chicago patron, Allison
Armour made a donation to Thompson to purchase the ruins at Chichen
Itza; about 100 square miles of land including Hacienda Chichen,
where he built his
cottage rooms and used as his
headquarters. While waiting for the hacienda to be restore, Thompson
camped out in Chichen Itza's Nunnery. Famous for his active roll in
the Maya exploration period, he discovered that chaltunes were used
as water reservoirs where there were no cenotes. He also had molds
made from Labna to recreate the Maya buildings for the 1893
Columbian Exposition. After Thompson had been researching in
Chichen Itza for 40 years the Mexican government decided that they
didn't approve of the work he was doing and he was forbidden to
return. Thompson wrote about his research and investigations of the
Maya culture in a book called People of the Serpent
published in 1932 and he died in New Jersey in 1935, read the
Hacienda
Chichen history details here. The Mexican Government
seized Chichen Itza following publication of a book in the United
States listing the value of its treasure in the millions. You may
read his brief biography
here.
Augustus and Alice Le
Plongeon
Augustus and Alice, both professional photographers, met in London while
Augustus was researching an upcoming trip to Mexico. They were
married in London, and after some time in New York, set sail for the
Yucatan in the summer of 1873. After spending a few months in
Merida, getting to know the people and the language, they spent most
of their time and effort
 photographing
the ruins at Uxmal. They also drew plans of the ruins and took
plaster casts of some of the more interesting sculptural elements at
Uxmal and Chichen Itza
Mayan
ruins. They spent their last summer at Uxmal in 1881 and
went to Chichen Itza to rest and finish up their documentation. The
two retired from fieldwork in 1884 but continued a controversial
career of lecturing and writing about the
ancient Maya culture.
Karl Ruppert,
1895-1960
Ruppert was a Maya archaeologist who had begun with the Carnegie
Institution under the direction of
Sylvanus
Morley. He was known for his knowledge and efforts to map
the residential mount at Chichen Itza, where his knowledge of small
architecture structures helped to plot the maps. He was also known
for his speedy professionalism and an eye for excavation sampling.
While working for the Carnigie Institution, Karl Ruppert lived at
the Hacienda Chichen, where he spent many seasons in collaboration
with A. Ledyard Smith surveying the vast ground area of the ancient
Maya city of Chichen Itza. Ruppert published quite a few books,
among them his Chichen Itza
Caracol monograph (Ruppert 1935) and his many preliminary
briefs on his house mound surveys (1952-56). His competent
professionalism places him among the most dedicated of the
archaeologists staff at the Carnegie Institute during its seasons in
the
Maya sites up to 1958, when the
Institute closed its Department of Archaeology.
Alfred Tozzer ,
1877-1954
Alfred Tozzer graduated from Harvard University in 1900. After college he
traveled extensively in Europe and participated in field work
concerning linguistics, ethnological and
archaeological areas. He first went to study the Maya in
1902 as a Traveling Fellow of the Archaeological Institution of
America and witnessed the dredging of the
Cenote of Sacrifice in Chichen
Itza. During the next three winters he worked as the first
ethnological student among the Maya in the heavy jungles of Chiapas
and Campeche. This experience gave him enough information upon which
to base his Ph.D. thesis and in 1905 Tozzer began teaching
Anthropology at Harvard. His most successful work was Landa,
an amazing translation of the pagan life of the Maya first written
by Frey Diego de Landa, the Bishop of Yucatan in 1566.
Ann A. Morris
In 1925, Ann Morris joined her husband, Earl H. Morris, the Field
Director for the Carnegie Institution Maya Expedition at Chichen
Itza,
Yucatan,
and the staff of archaeologists and scholars in the explorations and
investigations done at the main ancient
Maya
temples of Chichen Itza. Mrs. Morris and Jean Charlot
started working at the Temple of the Warriors by copying the
sculpted reliefs and murals of the Maya temples' inner chambers. As
she and Charlot were working in this project, Morley and his staff
uncovered the temple's principal altar area. In 1931, Mr. and Mrs.
Morris published their work in a two-volume set containing a
textbook and an illustration book, titled The Temple of Warriors
in Chichen Itza, Yucatan, and was co-authored by Jean Charlot.
One of the most impressive projects she was involved in was the
recovering and copying of the unique mural paintings at The Chac Mol
Temple and The Jaguar Temples.
Jean Charlot
As a young artist,
Jean Charlot was invited by Dr.
Sylvannus G. Morley to be part of the Carnegie Institute Maya
Expedition staff at Chichen Itza in the early 1920s. He was given
the task of recording the Maya stone carvings and sculptures in
detail through his drawings, paintings and sketches. During the four
years that he worked there, Mr. Charlot lived at the
Hacienda
Chichen, where he painted four fabulous murals: two small
ones at the Casco's lobby and two large ones in the east room of the
"Victoria Building" which are no longer visible due to the decay of
the stucco walls. By 1928, Jean Charlot concluded his field work at
Chichen-Itza and began working with the Morrises designing their
book The Warriors' Temple at Chichen Itza, Yucatan
published in 1931. The book has over a hundred fine detailed
illustrations, lithographies and color reproductions by Charlot. A
few repro-ductions of his artwork are part of the decor in each of
his cottage's four
guestrooms.
You may read his brief biography
here.
Dr. Merle Greene
Robertson
Dr.
Merle Greene Robertson developed
her personal artistic technique during the 1960s to create her
impressive
rubbings, which
have played a major role in the recording and study of ancient Maya
stone carvings and panels. Her extensive work covers over a hundred
Maya sites in Yucatan,
Mexico, Belize, Honduras and Guatemala. Here at her beloved
Chichen Itza, Dr. Robertson has
made over two thousand individual rubbings of almost every sculpted
stone structure,  including
the entire Great Ballcourt, the Temple of the Warriors and the sixty
columns of the N.E. Colonnade, every platform, the Osario, the
Castillo, the Hieroglyphic Panels and Columns of the Palace,
as well as many temples in Old Chichen, today a restricted area. Her
original works are in the "Merle
Greene Robertson Collection" of the Rare Book Department
of the Howard Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University. Mexicaπs
highest honor to a non-citizen was given to Dr. Robertson: the
"Order of the Aztec Eagle" awarded for her professional dedication
and contribution to the recording of Mesoamerican ancient art and
her twenty years directing the "Mesa Redonda de Palenque"
Conferences. Information about the museum with her rubbings can be
found on our
Museum page.
Read her brief biography
here.
Linda Schele,
1942-1998
American art historian and epigrapher Linda Schele was first and foremost
an artist, but when she saw Palenque in 1970, she turned her
remarkable talents towards recording Mesoamerican hieroglyphic
renderings, most notably on Maya stele. She published prolifically
and toward the end of her life ran workshops on Maya writing in
Texas, Guatemala and Belize. She considered the work she did
educating
present day Mayans in the hieroglyphic writing to be the
most important work of her career. She was awarded two diplomas of
recognition by the government of Guatemala.
Harry Evelyn D.
Pollock, 1900-1982
In 1927 Harry Pollack decided to give archaeology a try by joining the
Carnegie Institute Archaeological program and moving to Yucatan. In
his first season, Pollock worked in Chichen Itza under Dr. Morley
and lived at Hacienda Chichen where he met Sir Eric Thompson and
Jean Charlot. The three men collaborated in a major publication in
1932 dedicated to the Maya architecture style. Dr. Pollock's
doctoral dissertation on Maya architecture Round Structures of
Aboriginal Middle America was published by the Carnegie
Institute in 1936, the year he received his doctorate from from
Harvard University in Maya Archaeology. During the time he lived at
Hacienda Chichen, Dr. Pollock met Dr. Alfred Tozzer, who later
became his role model and friend. For his achievements, Dr. Pollock
received many awards during his lifetime. Today, Dr. Pollock's
contribution to the understanding of Maya architecture and symbolism
is well recognized.
Tatiana Proskouriakoff,
1909-1985
Tatiana was born in 1909 in Tomsk, Siberia, Russia to a chemist father
and a physician mother.
Tatiana was raised in Pennsylvania
and received her Bachelor of Science from Pennsylvania State
University in architecture. When she couldn't find work during the
Depression as an architect, she answered an ad and went to work at
the University drawing archaeological reconstructions of Chichen
Itza, Tikal and other
Mayan
ruins. Tatiana noticed patterns in the hieroglyphics at
Piedras Negras and eventually was able to identify historical
figures and events as told by the hieroglyphics. For her work in
this area, she was given the Alfred V. Kidder medal in 1962 and was
Penn State's Woman of the Year in 1971. In 1984, she was given the
Order of the Quetzal, the highest award given to a foreigner by
Guatemala. You may read her brief biography
here.
Frederick Catherwood, 1799-1854
Catherwood was born in England in 1799 into an affluent family. His
schooling was completed at Oxford University where he studied
architecture. At the age of 40, Catherwood accompanied a successful
writer named John Lloyd Stephens to Central America with the
intention of illustrating a book that Stephens was to write on the
ancient Mayan civilization.
Stephens and Catherwood discovered wonderfully majestic but deserted
cities and the ruins in these cities were the inspiration for the
beautiful drawings published as Incidents of Travel in Yucatan.
He made his drawings using a camera lucida (an optic
device invented before photography). Cather-wood's artwork was vivid
and intriguing and became a best seller. Central America was not the
only place that Catherwood traveled in service to his art. Before
his trip to Cen-tral America, he dis-guised himself as a Muslem and
explored the Near East and documented Robert Hay’s expeditions in
Egypt.
Information gathered from these websites:
FAMSI
archaeology.about.com
Encyclopedia Brittanica
Planeta.com
California State Univeristy at Hayward
University of South Florida
Charsolomon.com
Minnesota State University
Yucatan
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