- Augustus Le Plongeon
Infobox Writer
name = Augustus Le Plongeon
imagesize = 200px
caption = Photograph byAlice Dixon Le Plongeon
birthdate = birth date|1825|5|4|mf=y
birthplace =Jersey
deathdate = death date and age|1908|12|13|1825|5|4
deathplace =Brooklyn, New York
occupation =antiquarian and amateurarchaeologist
nationality = flag|United Kingdom
subject =Maya civilization ,Atlantis
influences =Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
influenced =Lewis Spence ,James Churchward ,Alexander Braghine Augustus Le Plongeon (1825-1908) was a
photographer ,antiquarian and amateurarchaeologist . He studied thepre-Columbian ruins of America, particularly those of theMaya civilization on the northernYucatán Peninsula . While his writings contain many eccentric notions which were discredited by later researchers, Le Plongeon left a lasting legacy in his photographs documenting the ancient ruins. He should also be regarded as one of the earliest proponents ofMayanism .He wrote a lengthy history of Maya culture, going so far as to propose a theory that Maya had founded
Ancient Egypt , a theory which has since been discredited by the scientific community. Le Plongeon, a Freemason, was convinced that the roots ofFreemasonry were to be found in the ancient Maya culture. In general, his theories were considered to be somewhat outlandish by near-contemporaries and laterMayanist scholars such asDésiré Charnay ,Teoberto Maler andAlfred Maudslay , and he is regarded today as one of the more eccentric characters to have worked in the field. [cite book | first=Michael D. | last=Coe | authorlink=Michael D. Coe | coauthors= | year=1992 | month= | title= Breaking the Maya Code | chapter= | editor= | others= | edition= | pages=109 | publisher=Thames and Hudson | location=London | id= ISBN 0-500-05061-9| url= ] However, as a pioneer in producing photographic records of Maya sites and inscriptions, Le Plongeon's works and images retain at least a curio value to later researchers and in several cases preserve the appearance of sites and objects which were subsequently damaged.Early life and careers
Le Plongeon was born on the island of
Jersey onMay 4 ,1825 . He attended and graduated fromEcole Polytechnique inParis .After graduation, at the age of 19, he sailed to
South America and was caught in ashipwreck off the coast ofChile . While there he settled inValparaiso and taughtmathematics ,drawing , and languages at a local college. In 1849, news of theCalifornia gold rush reached him, and he sailed to San Francisco to work as a surveyor, and also apprenticed to became a doctor of medicine. One of his accomplishments as a surveyor included drawing a plan for the layout of the town ofMarysville, California in the Central Valley in 1851.He then moved to
England and studiedphotography later in 1851. After learning photography, he returned to San Francisco in 1855 to open adaguerreotype portrait studio on Clay Street. In 1862, he traveled toLima, Peru and opened yet another photography studio and an "electro-hydropathic" medical clinic.Travels in Peru
Le Plongeon started full time research on the Maya civilization, and pioneered the use of photography as a tool for his studies. He began using the wet
collodion glass-plate negative process he used for studio portraits to record his exploration. He traveled extensively all overPeru for eight years visiting and photographing the ancient ruins, including making photographs forE. G. Squier 's expedition.In 1870, he left Peru and traveled back once again to San Francisco where he gave a number of illustrated lectures at the
California Academy of Sciences on Peruvian archaeology and the causes ofearthquake s. His travels then continued on toNew York , and by 1871 he was at theBritish Museum inLondon studyingMesoamerica nmanuscript s. His reading of the works of the French scholarCharles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg culminated in a stirring belief thatcivilization had its origins in theNew World .Further research and development of theories
While in
London he met and married Alice Dixon, the woman with whom he would collaborate for the rest of his life. Alice, born in London in 1851, had been well educated, and also taught the art of photography by her father Henry Dixon - a man who was recognized in the late nineteenth century for his contribution to the development ofpanchromatic photography, and for his photos of Londonarchitecture taken for the Society for Preserving the Relics of Old London.Augustus le Plongeon also had the opportunity to learn the technology of creating photographic negatives directly from the father of modern photography,
William Fox Talbot in 1873.After he had made what he considered to be a complete comparative study of Maya and Egyptian
religion ,linguistics , and architecture, he concluded that Maya culture had been diffused throughoutSoutheast Asia by Maya travelers who then went on to the lost continent ofAtlantis and subsequently theMiddle East to found Egyptian civilization. While most archaeologists of the early and mid-nineteenth century placed the Maya civilization later than Egypt, the chronologies were still relatively uncertain and Le Plongeon's theory found some adherents.Travels in Yucatán
In 1873, the le Plongeons traveled to Yucatán, and remained there almost continuously until 1885 in search of cultural connections between the Maya and Ancient Egypt. They used photography to record the ruins. Their photographic work was methodical and systematic, and they took hundreds of 3-D photos.
They documented entire Maya buildings such as the 'Governor's Palace' at
Uxmal in overlapping photos by placing the camera on a tall tripod or scaffold to correct for perspective, and then processed the plates in the unlit rooms of Maya buildings. In addition to entire facades of buildings, they also photographed small artifacts, and architectural details such asbas-relief s, Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions, andsculpture s.At
Chichen Itza they excavated a curiously-formed statue or altar figurine, coining the name "Chaacmol" (later "Chac Mool " or "chacmool") for it, from a structure known as the "Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars". Although their alleged derivation of the name is known now to have had no association with figures of this type, the name has remained in general use among later archaeologists. This statue would later be used as a demonstration ofToltec influences at the site, with other examples found at the Toltec's capital, Tula. They also documented their excavation of the Platform of Venus with photos as well as plan and cross-section drawings, and visited and photographed other Maya sites such asIzamal ,Isla Mujeres ,Cozumel ,Cancún , andAke , and traveled toBelize (British Honduras).Le Plongeon is also known for his attempted translation of the
Troano Codex .The "translation" was viewed with much skepticism at the time, and is considered by all modern authorities to be completely mistaken, based on little more than Le Plongeon's own imagination. He claimed that one section detailed the destruction of the lost continent of Mu, which he interpreted asAtlantis .Theories and later career
By the 1880s, while other
Mayanist s fully accepted that the Maya post-datedAncient Egypt , Le Plongeon refused to yield to the new findings. He stood by his years of field and archival studies, and challenged those he considered "armchair" archaeologists to debate the issues. But thechronology and evidence againstcultural diffusion was overwhelming, and he very quickly found himself ignored, his theories condemned to the fringe of the new profession.Le Plongeon constructed an imaginative "history", with the Maya sites in Yucatán being the cradle of
civilization , with civilization then traveling east first toAtlantis and later toAncient Egypt . He named kings and queens of these dynasties, and said that various artworks were portraits of such ancient royalty (such as the famousChac Mool ). He claimed that the ancient Maya understood the use of the electrictelegraph . Le Plongeon wrote that the sites of the central lowlands were not Maya at all, but were built by a different people much later than the sites of Yucatán. He attributed the construction ofPalenque to people fromPolynesia . All of this is now known to be false, and most was considered very dubious by Le Plongeon's contemporaries.He was never fully recognized for his work in the Yucatán, but his over five hundred photos still remain an important contribution to American archaeology. Augustus spent the remainder of his life in
Brooklyn, New York , writing about the connections between Maya and Egypt and defending himself against detractors. Augustus le Plongeon died in Brooklyn in 1908 at the age of eighty-three; Alice followed in 1910 at the age of fifty-nine.Published works
A collection of the works of the le Plongeons currently resides at the Getty Research Institute in
Los Angeles . The archive contains original records covering their travels from the 1860s through the early 1900s, including diaries, unpublished scholarly manuscripts and notes, correspondence, and extensive photographic documentation of ancient architecture and sculpture, city views, and ethnographic studies.References
*cite book |author=Desmond, Lawrence and Phyllis Messenger|year=1988 |title=A Dream of Maya: Augustus and Alice Le Plongeon in Nineteenth Century Yucatan |url=http://maya.csuhayward.edu/archaeoplanet/LgdPage/Dream/Start.htm |format=Online text reproduction |location=Albuquerque, NM |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |isbn=0-82631-000-1
* Desmond, LG (1999). 'Augustus Le Plongeon. A fall from archaeological grace', in AB Kehoe & MB Emmerichs (edd.), "Assembling the Past: Studies in the Professionalization of Archaeology", Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp. 81-90. ISBN 0-8263-1939-4.Footnotes
External links
* [http://library.getty.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&SAB1=&BOOL1=all+of+these&FLD1=Keyword%28s%29+%28GETG%29&GRP1=AND+with+next+set&SAB2=&BOOL2=all+of+these&FLD2=Author+%28GETN%29&GRP2=AND+with+next+set&SAB3=2004.m.18&BOOL3=all+of+these&FLD3=ID+%2F+Accession+No.+%28e.g.+86-B25%2C+960015%29+%28IDNU%29&CNT=25&HIST=1 Le Plongeon Papers at the Getty Research Institute]
* [http://www.ku.edu/~hoopes/506/LePlongeon.htm Dr. Le Plongeon's 3D Photography]
* [http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/klmno/leplongeon_augustus.html Biography from Minnesota State University]
* [http://maya.csuhayward.edu/archaeoplanet/LGD01.html#Augustus%20Le%20Plongeon%20and%20Alice%20Dixon%20 ArcheoPlanet: "Augustus Le Plongeon, Alice Dixon, and the history of archaeology"]Le Plongeon photographs of Uxmal. http://academic.reed.edu/uxmal/contents.html
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