Edward Herbert Thompson
Edward Herbert Thompson
Born	September 28, 1857 Worcester, Massachusetts
Died	May 11, 1935(1935-05-11) (aged 77) Plainfield, New Jersey
Known for	Maya civilization
Scientific career
Fields	archaeology

Edward Herbert Thompson (September 28, 1857 – May 11, 1935) was an American-bornarchaeologist and long-timeconsul toYucatán, Mexico.

Edward H. Thompson was born inWorcester, Massachusetts. Thompson devoted much of his career to study of theMaya civilization.

In 1879,Popular Science Monthly published "Atlantis Not a Myth", an article by Thompson in which he argued that the indigenous civilizations of North and Central America could be remnants of the lost continent ofAtlantis.^[1] The article attracted the attention ofStephen Salisbury III, a wealthy Worcester resident,Mayanist, and principal benefactor of theAmerican Antiquarian Society. Salisbury, along with fellow AAS members The Rev.Edward Everett Hale and Massachusetts SenatorGeorge Frisbie Hoar, persuaded Thompson to move toYucatán to explore the Maya ruins in exchange for receiving an appointment as American Consul.^[2] Thompson arrived inMérida, Yucatán, in 1885 and lived there for forty years.^[3] Although he spoke only English upon his arrival, he learned Spanish and also became fluent in theYucatec Maya language.^[4]

Thompson did early examinations and excavations of several sites in the MayaPuuc region, includingLoltun andLabná; at the latter site publishing a monograph on the Maya underground storage containers known as chultunes.^[5] He also became the first explorer to find and excavate a small site he calledX'Kichmook.^[6]

He made a series of plaster casts of Maya sculptures and architecture, particularly fromUxmal and Labná, which were exhibited at theWorld Columbian Exposition inChicago, Illinois in 1893.^[7]

With the help of Alison Armour, Thompson in 1894 purchased theplantation that included the site ofChichen Itza.^[8] He rebuilt thehacienda, which had been destroyed in theCaste War of Yucatán. For thirty years he explored the site, on behalf of theField Columbian Museum, theAmerican Antiquarian Society, thePeabody Museum atHarvard University and others. His discoveries included the earliest dated carving upon a lintel in theTemple of the Initial Series^[9] and the excavation of several graves in theOssario (High Priest’s Temple).^[10]

Thompson is most famous for dredging the Cenote Sagrado (Sacred Cenote) from 1904 to 1911, where he recovered artifacts of gold, copper and carved jade, as well as the first-ever examples of what were believed to be pre-Columbian Maya cloth and wooden weapons. Thompson shipped the bulk of the artifacts to thePeabody Museum.^[11] In 1926, the Mexican government seized Thompson's plantation, charging he had removed the artifacts illegally.^[12] The Mexican Supreme Court in 1944 ruled in Thompson's favor.^[13] Thompson, however, had died inPlainfield, New Jersey in 1935, so the Hacienda Chichen reverted to his heirs.^[14]

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Edward Herbert Thompson

Wikimedia Commons has media related toEdward Herbert Thompson.

• 30 photographs of Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil, and Labná from the 1888-91 Thompson/Peabody Museum expedition.

• 1857 births
• 1935 deaths
• People from Worcester, Massachusetts
• 19th-century American explorers
• 20th-century American explorers
• American archaeologists
• Explorers of Central America
• American explorers of North America
• Mayanists
• Mesoamerican archaeologists
• American Mesoamericanists
• 19th-century Mesoamericanists
• 20th-century Mesoamericanists
• American expatriates in Mexico
• Consuls for the United States

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