Few explorers can live up to the image of Edward Herbert Thompson. Made notorious after dredging Chichen Itza's sacred cenote in 1904, Thompson's dashing and dramatic exploits lasted more than three decades.
Born in Massachusetts in 1856, he followed in the footsteps of the Yucatán's first known explorers, John Lloyd Stephens and artist Frederick Catherwood who co-authored Incidents of Travel in Yucatán. Shortly after publication of this instant 1843 bestseller, the Caste War of Yucatán broke out limiting access to the peninsula's finest pyramid sites, closing borders to all but indigenous Maya for 60 years.
Thompson, appointed archeological consul to the Yucatán in 1895, was one of the first explorers to tread the land after the war began. His work as an anthropologist began in 1879 when he published a highly unscientific article for Popular Mechanic, titled "Atlantis: Not a Myth," which attempted to link Socrates' lost continent with the rediscovered Maya. Though he later disclaimed his outlandish theory, the article gained him notoriety and attracted the attention of the American Antiquarian Society, whose vice-president lobbied the senate to appoint Thompson as American consul to Mexico.
YUCATÁN CONSUL
As the youngest consul ever, Thompson's post included the Mexican states of Yucatán and Campache which he used as jumping off spots for further pyramid exploration. With his wife Henrietta and their two-month old daughter, they headed south in 1895.
He passed several months in Merida where he began the process of befriending local Maya, so to better study their legends, psychology and language. He traveled widely in those early months, trekking to all known ancient cities—well over one hundred—to familiarize himself with the ruins and the lay of the land. He learned to travel light, unlike other explorers, and adapted his ways to the Maya way of life.
Although his adventures would leave a physical mark on the man—an encounter with a poison trap in the jungle left him lame in one leg—his archeological fame soared. He was known for two coups: his first, the purchase of 100 square miles of Chichen Itza which included the ruins and a Spanish plantation house, through the auspices of Chicago meat packing magnate, Allison Armour. When the Mexican government finally caught wind of the sale, they negated the transaction, but allowed him to camp out on the premises. During his excavations, he used Chichen Itza's famous "Nunnery" as bedroom and office.
SACRED CENOTE AT CHICHEN ITZA
But the height of his fame came from his second coup: dredging the cenote at Chichen Itza. From his earliest excursion to the site, he admitted he had an uncanny draw to the sacred cenote and his initial interest was further spurred on as he read texts and documents about it. As all but three Maya codices or paperback books had been destroyed by fire by a Spanish bishop, Diego de Landa, in the early 1500s, little information on the early Maya existed.
After his destruction of the written Mayan language, along with countless statues and religious artifacts, the king of Spain ordered de Landa to write a history of the Maya and their culture. Thompson read de Landa's account of the Chichen Itza cenote which explained that during times of drought or strife, priests and commoners made pilgrimages to the cenote to appease the gods they believed lived in the water's depths. De Landa's account stated maidens and captive warriors were thrown into the well as sacrifices. He also added it was customary for ornaments, household items, and gold to also be thrown in to appease the gods by commoners and hierarchy alike.
Thompson took the priest's account as fact and implemented a plan to dive the cenote. For this he needed to invent a diving apparatus. He headed back to the US to solicit funds, then traveled to Boston where he took deep sea diving lessons for two months. While in Boston he developed a dredging bucket with steel cables, a derrick and a 30-foot swinging boom for the project. He had it crated up and shipped it all south.
Within weeks he was training local Maya to assist him in what everyone considered to be a maniac's misadventure. After setting up his materials, he dredged through thick silt for a month, coming up empty. At last he pulled an unrecognizable mucky substance to the surface. He dried it and attempted to burn it, discovering it was Maya incense, or copal, used in religious ceremonies. With this discovery, he knew he was on the brink of a major finding.
TREASURE HUNT
Thompson's discovery put the Maya back on the world explorers' map. He had proof that humans had been sacrificed at Chichen Itza. Young women had been hurled by priests into a dismal pool as offerings to their gods, and now the explorer had the skeletal remains to prove it.
Ironically, Thompson's score threatened to jeopardize his standing in the archeological community as it was later discovered he had sent many of the dredged artifacts secretly in diplomatic pouches to the Peabody in Boston where most remain to this day, far from the Yucatán. But such was Thompson's stature that even this revelation did not diminish his professional standing, when all was said and done.
HOW THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT
Thompson also discovered how the Maya built the pyramids. Near Chichen Itza he found shallow quarries with worked veins of sascab, the lime gravel mixture the Maya used as mortar. Scattered around the area he found hammer stones of calcite, pecking stones of flint, and smoothing stones that were most likely used to produce flat surfaces on walls. Even though ancient Maya craftsmen had no metal tools, his discovery of the quarry and tool remnants assisted scientists in determining how the Maya created the pyramids without the use of metal. Thompson also found chisels of nephrite, a less valuable source of jade, and as a test, he used one to carve his own name onto an ancient stone to prove it could be done.
Thompson went on to discover an ancient Maya 'date' stone, later named the Tablet of the Initial Series, which served in deciphering dates of Chichen Itza's classic period for cryptographers. His exploits were those of an intrepid explorer. His continued determination throughout his near 40-year tenure in the Yucatán helped unravel the secrets of a great civilization.
After his explorations were wrapped up, Thompson wrote People of the Serpent in 1932 detailing his time exploring in the Yucatán. He died in 1935 in New Jersey.
After writing this article I was approached by great grandchildren of Edward Herbert Thompson and communicated with them about their great grandfather. It was thrilling, to know that his relatives still live in Piste, the small community adjacent to Chichen Itza.
For more information on my writing, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. My first book, a travel memoir titled Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya is available on Amazon, as is Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, which is a journalistic overview of the 2012 calendar phenomenon. Books two and three of my Wheels Up cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival and Tulum Takedown are also available on Amazon. Subscribe above to keep up to date with further blogs on Mexico and the Maya and the Yucatán.
