Augustus Le Plongeon
Encyclopedia
Augustus Le Plongeon was a photographer and antiquarian
who studied the pre-Columbian
ruins of America, particularly those of the Maya civilization
on the northern Yucatán Peninsula
. While his writings contain many eccentric notions that 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 of Mayanism
.
Le Plongeon wrote a lengthy history of Maya culture, going so far as to propose a theory that Maya had been in touch with the lost continent of Atlantis
and were ancestral to Ancient Egypt
, a theory which has since been discredited by the scientific community. Le Plongeon, a Freemason, was also convinced that the roots of Freemasonry
were to be found in the ancient Maya culture. However, as a pioneer in producing photographic records of Maya sites and inscriptions, Le Plongeon's works retain at least a curio value to later researchers and his photographs preserve the appearance of many sites and objects that have been subsequently damaged or destroyed.
on May 4, 1826. At 19, he sailed to South America
and shipwrecked off the coast of Chile
. While there he settled in Valparaiso
and taught mathematics
, drawing
, and languages at a local college. In 1849 he sailed to San Francisco
during the California gold rush
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 of Marysville, California
in the Central Valley
in 1851.
He moved to England
and studied photography
with William Fox Talbot
in 1851. He returned to San Francisco in 1855 to open a daguerreotype
portrait studio on Clay Street. In 1862, he traveled to Lima, Peru and opened another photography studio and an "electro-hydropathic" medical clinic based on an early form of alternative medicine
.
glass-plate negative
process he used for studio portraits to record his explorations. He traveled extensively all over Peru
for eight years visiting and photographing the ancient ruins, including making photographs for E. 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 of earthquake
s. His travels then continued on to New York
, and by 1871 he was at the British Museum
in London
studying Mesoamerica
n manuscript
s. His reading of the works of the French scholar Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
culminated in a stirring belief that civilization
had its origins in the New World
.
he met 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 had been 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 of panchromatic
photography, and for his photos of London architecture
taken for the Society for Preserving the Relics of Old London.
Alice returned with Augustus to New York, where the couple married.
and the discovery of ancient Troy
, a location that had been described in the epic poems of Homer
. Brasseur de Bourbourg
had suggested links between the ancient Maya and Atlantis
and Le Plongeon felt that descriptions of Atlantis by Plato
also provided a key to finding places described in ancient myths and legends.
The Le Plongeons 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 as bas-reliefs, Maya hieroglyphic
inscriptions, and sculpture
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 of Toltec
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 as Izamal
, Isla Mujeres
, Cozumel
, Cancún
, and Ake
, and traveled to Belize
(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 Atlantis
.
s accepted that the Maya civilization postdated Ancient Egypt
, Le Plongeon stood by his theories. He cited his years of fieldwork and studies of archival sources, and challenged those he considered "armchair" archaeologists to debate the issues. But as evidence mounted against cultural diffusion
, Le Plongeon became marginalized and his theories falling further outside of the growing mainstream of Maya archaeology.
Le Plongeon insisted that the symbols of Freemasonry
could be traced to the ancient Maya, and that this ancient knowledge had come to ancient Egypt from the ancient Maya by way of Atlantis. He and Alice constructed an imaginative "history", with the Maya sites in Yucatán being the cradle of civilization
, with civilization then traveling east first to Atlantis
and later to Ancient Egypt
. The Le Plongeons named kings and queens of these dynasties, and said that various artworks were portraits of such ancient royalty (such as the famous Chacmool, which the couple excavated at Chichén Itzá). The Le Plongeons reconstructed a detailed but fanciful story of Queen Moo and Prince Coh (also known as "Chac Mool") in which Prince Coh's death resulted in the erection of monuments in his honor (surprisingly similar to the commemoration of Prince Albert
by Queen Victoria).
Le Plongeon wrote that some sites identified as part of the Maya civilization were not Maya at all. For example, he attributed the construction of Palenque
to people from Polynesia
. He also believed that the ancient Maya understood the use of the electric telegraph.
While most of Le Plongeon's contemporaries dismissed his theories, individuals such as Ignatius Donnelly
and Helena Blavatsky drew upon Le Plongeon's research for their own theories.
He was never fully recognized for his work in the Yucatán, but the hundreds of photos he and Alice took 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.
Le Plongeon's theories, an early form of alternative history
, survive today in certain New Age
beliefs that are derived from occult
knowledge and Theosophy
.
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.
Le Plongeon photographs of Uxmal. http://academic.reed.edu/uxmal/contents.html
Antiquarian
An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...
who studied the pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
ruins of America, particularly those of the Maya civilization
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
on the northern Yucatán Peninsula
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...
. While his writings contain many eccentric notions that 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 of Mayanism
Mayanism
Mayanism is a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples...
.
Le Plongeon wrote a lengthy history of Maya culture, going so far as to propose a theory that Maya had been in touch with the lost continent of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
and were ancestral to Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, a theory which has since been discredited by the scientific community. Le Plongeon, a Freemason, was also convinced that the roots of Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
were to be found in the ancient Maya culture. However, as a pioneer in producing photographic records of Maya sites and inscriptions, Le Plongeon's works retain at least a curio value to later researchers and his photographs preserve the appearance of many sites and objects that have been subsequently damaged or destroyed.
Early life and careers
Le Plongeon was born on the island of JerseyJersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...
on May 4, 1826. At 19, he sailed to South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
and shipwrecked off the coast of Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
. While there he settled in Valparaiso
Valparaíso
Valparaíso is a city and commune of Chile, center of its third largest conurbation and one of the country's most important seaports and an increasing cultural center in the Southwest Pacific hemisphere. The city is the capital of the Valparaíso Province and the Valparaíso Region...
and taught mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
, and languages at a local college. In 1849 he sailed to San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
during the California gold rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
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 of Marysville, California
Marysville, California
Marysville is the county seat of Yuba County, California, United States. The population was 12,072 at the 2010 census, down from 12,268 at the 2000 census. It is included in the Yuba City Metropolitan Statistical Area, often referred to as the Yuba-Sutter Area after the two counties, Yuba and...
in the Central Valley
California Central Valley
California's Central Valley is a large, flat valley that dominates the central portion of California. It is home to California's most productive agricultural efforts. The valley stretches approximately from northwest to southeast inland and parallel to the Pacific Ocean coast. Its northern half is...
in 1851.
He moved to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and studied photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
with William Fox Talbot
William Fox Talbot
William Henry Fox Talbot was a British inventor and a pioneer of photography. He was the inventor of calotype process, the precursor to most photographic processes of the 19th and 20th centuries. He was also a noted photographer who made major contributions to the development of photography as an...
in 1851. He returned to San Francisco in 1855 to open a daguerreotype
Daguerreotype
The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate....
portrait studio on Clay Street. In 1862, he traveled to Lima, Peru and opened another photography studio and an "electro-hydropathic" medical clinic based on an early form of alternative medicine
Alternative medicine
Alternative medicine is any healing practice, "that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine." It is based on historical or cultural traditions, rather than on scientific evidence....
.
Travels in Peru
Le Plongeon pioneered the use of photography as a tool for his studies. He began using the wet collodionCollodion
Collodion is a flammable, syrupy solution of pyroxylin in ether and alcohol. There are two basic types; flexible and non-flexible. The flexible type is often used as a surgical dressing or to hold dressings in place. When painted on the skin, collodion dries to form a flexible cellulose film...
glass-plate negative
Negative (photography)
In photography, a negative may refer to three different things, although they are all related.-A negative:Film for 35 mm cameras comes in long narrow strips of chemical-coated plastic or cellulose acetate. As each image is captured by the camera onto the film strip, the film strip advances so that...
process he used for studio portraits to record his explorations. He traveled extensively all over Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
for eight years visiting and photographing the ancient ruins, including making photographs for E. G. Squier
E. G. Squier
Ephraim George Squier was an American archaeologist and newspaper editor.-Biography:He was born in Bethlehem, New York, the son of a minister of English heritage and his Palatine German wife. In early youth he worked on a farm, attended and taught school, studied engineering, and became interested...
'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
California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences is among the largest museums of natural history in the world. The academy began in 1853 as a learned society and still carries out a large amount of original research, with exhibits and education becoming significant endeavors of the museum during the twentieth...
on Peruvian archaeology and the causes of earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
s. His travels then continued on to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and by 1871 he was at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
studying Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
n manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s. His reading of the works of the French scholar Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Abbé Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg was a noted French writer, ethnographer, historian and archaeologist...
culminated in a stirring belief that civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
had its origins in the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
.
Alice Dixon Le Plongeon
While in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
he met Alice Dixon
Alice Dixon Le Plongeon
Alice Dixon Le Plongeon was an English photographer, amateur archaeologist traveller, and author. Together with her husband Augustus Le Plongeon she spent eleven years living and working in southern Mexico and Central America photographing and studying the ruined cities of the pre-Columbian Maya...
, 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 had been 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 of panchromatic
Panchromatic
Panchromatic film is a type of black-and-white photographic film that is sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light. A panchromatic film therefore produces a realistic reproduction of a scene as it appears to the human eye. Almost all modern photographic film is panchromatic, but some types are...
photography, and for his photos of London architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
taken for the Society for Preserving the Relics of Old London.
Alice returned with Augustus to New York, where the couple married.
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. Le Plongeon was inspired by the work of his contemporary Heinrich SchliemannHeinrich Schliemann
Heinrich Schliemann was a German businessman and amateur archaeologist, and an advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in the works of Homer. Schliemann was an archaeological excavator of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns...
and the discovery of ancient Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
, a location that had been described in the epic poems of Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
. Brasseur de Bourbourg
Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Abbé Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg was a noted French writer, ethnographer, historian and archaeologist...
had suggested links between the ancient Maya and Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
and Le Plongeon felt that descriptions of Atlantis by Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
also provided a key to finding places described in ancient myths and legends.
The Le Plongeons used photography to record the ruins. Their photographic work was methodical and systematic, and they took hundreds of 3-D photos
Stereogram
A stereogram is pair of two-dimensional panels depicting the view of a scene or an object from the vantage points of the right and left eyes. Observing the panels superimposed in a stereoscope results in the experience of three-dimensionality by virtue of the fact that object depth is encoded as...
. They documented entire Maya buildings such as the "Governor's Palace" at Uxmal
Uxmal
Uxmal was dominant from 875 to 900 CE. The site appears to have been the capital of a regional state in the Puuc region from 850-950 CE. The Maya dynasty expanded their dominion over their neighbors. This prominence didn't last long...
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
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
, and architectural details such as bas-reliefs, Maya hieroglyphic
Maya script
The Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs or Maya hieroglyphs, is the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered...
inscriptions, and sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
s.
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Municipality of Tinúm, Yucatán state, present-day Mexico....
they excavated a curiously-formed statue or altar figurine, coining the name "Chaacmol" (later "Chac Mool
Chac Mool
Chac-Mool is the name given to a type of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican stone statue.The Chac-Mool depicts a human figure in a position of reclining with the head up and turned to one side, holding a tray over the stomach...
" 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 of Toltec
Toltec
The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology...
influences at the site, with other examples found at the Toltec's capital, Tula
Tula, Hidalgo
Tula, formally, Tula de Allende, is a town and one of the 84 municipalities of Hidalgo, in central-eastern Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 305.8 km² , and as of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 93,296, with 28,432 in the town...
. 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 as Izamal
Izamal
Izamal is a small city in the Mexican state of Yucatán, 72 km east of state capital Mérida. Izamal was continuously occupied throughout most of Mesoamerican chronology; in 2000, the city's estimated population was 15,000 people...
, Isla Mujeres
Isla Mujeres
Isla Mujeres is one of the ten municipalities of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The municipality, located in the northeastern corner of the state is mostly on the mainland and has a municipal seat of the same name; Isla Mujeres...
, Cozumel
Cozumel
Cozumel is an island in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, opposite Playa del Carmen, and close to the Yucatan Channel. Cozumel is one of the ten municipalities of the state of Quintana Roo...
, Cancún
Cancún
Cancún is a city of international tourism development certified by the UNWTO . Located on the northeast coast of Quintana Roo in southern Mexico, more than 1,700 km from Mexico City, the Project began operations in 1974 as Integrally Planned Center, a pioneer of FONATUR Cancún is a city of...
, and Ake
Ake
Ake is an archaeological site of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, located in the municipality of Tixkokob. in the Mexican state of Yucatán; 40 km east of Mérida, Yucatán....
, and traveled to Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
(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 Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
.
Theories and later career
By the 1880s, while most MayanistMayanist
A Mayanist is a scholar specialising in research and study of the Central American pre-Columbian Maya civilization. This discipline should not be confused with Mayanism, a collection of New Age beliefs about the ancient Maya....
s accepted that the Maya civilization postdated Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, Le Plongeon stood by his theories. He cited his years of fieldwork and studies of archival sources, and challenged those he considered "armchair" archaeologists to debate the issues. But as evidence mounted against cultural diffusion
Cultural diffusion
In cultural anthropology and cultural geography, cultural diffusion, as first conceptualized by Alfred L. Kroeber in his influential 1940 paper Stimulus Diffusion, or trans-cultural diffusion in later reformulations, is the spread of cultural items—such as ideas, styles, religions, technologies,...
, Le Plongeon became marginalized and his theories falling further outside of the growing mainstream of Maya archaeology.
Le Plongeon insisted that the symbols of Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
could be traced to the ancient Maya, and that this ancient knowledge had come to ancient Egypt from the ancient Maya by way of Atlantis. He and Alice constructed an imaginative "history", with the Maya sites in Yucatán being the cradle of civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
, with civilization then traveling east first to Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
and later to Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
. The Le Plongeons named kings and queens of these dynasties, and said that various artworks were portraits of such ancient royalty (such as the famous Chacmool, which the couple excavated at Chichén Itzá). The Le Plongeons reconstructed a detailed but fanciful story of Queen Moo and Prince Coh (also known as "Chac Mool") in which Prince Coh's death resulted in the erection of monuments in his honor (surprisingly similar to the commemoration of Prince Albert
Prince Albert
Prince Albert was the husband and consort of Queen Victoria.Prince Albert may also refer to:-Royalty:*Prince Albert Edward or Edward VII of the United Kingdom , son of Albert and Victoria...
by Queen Victoria).
Le Plongeon wrote that some sites identified as part of the Maya civilization were not Maya at all. For example, he attributed the construction of Palenque
Palenque
Palenque was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century. The Palenque ruins date back to 100 BC to its fall around 800 AD...
to people from Polynesia
Polynesia
Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...
. He also believed that the ancient Maya understood the use of the electric telegraph.
While most of Le Plongeon's contemporaries dismissed his theories, individuals such as Ignatius Donnelly
Ignatius Donnelly
Ignatius Loyola Donnelly was a U.S. Congressman, populist writer and amateur scientist, known primarily now for his theories concerning Atlantis, Catastrophism , and Shakespearean authorship, all of which modern historians consider to be pseudoscience and pseudohistory...
and Helena Blavatsky drew upon Le Plongeon's research for their own theories.
He was never fully recognized for his work in the Yucatán, but the hundreds of photos he and Alice took 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.
Le Plongeon's theories, an early form of alternative history
Alternative history
Alternative history may refer to a number of subjects relating to history, the chronology and study of the past. It may mean:* Alternate history, a subgenre of speculative fiction dealing with divergences from the world's actual history...
, survive today in certain New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
beliefs that are derived from occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
knowledge and Theosophy
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
.
Published works
A collection of the works of the Le Plongeons currently resides at the Getty Research InstituteGetty Center
The Getty Center, in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, is a campus for cultural institutions founded by oilman J. Paul Getty. The $1.3 billion center, which opened on December 16, 1997, is also well known for its architecture, gardens, and views overlooking Los Angeles...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. 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.
External links
- Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon papers, 1763-1937, bulk 1860-1910. Research Library at the Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California. The collection documents the archaeological excavations, fieldwork, research, and writings of Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, the first persons to systematically excavate and photograph the Maya sites of Chichén Itzá and Uxmal. The couple’s pioneering work in documenting Maya sites and inscriptions with photography, which in many cases recorded sites and objects that have subsequently been damaged or lost, was overshadowed in their own lifetimes by their theories of Maya cultural diffusion, and in particular by their insistence that the Maya founded ancient Egypt. The Le Plongeons’ work, and evidence of their wide-ranging interests is found in unpublished manuscripts, diaries, correspondence, drawings, plans, and photographs. The collection also contains the papers of Maude and Henry Field Blackwell, who inherited the literary estate of the Le Plongeons.
- Dr. Le Plongeon's 3D Photography
- Biography from Minnesota State University
- ArcheoPlanet: Augustus Le Plongeon, Alice Dixon, and the history of archaeology
Le Plongeon photographs of Uxmal. http://academic.reed.edu/uxmal/contents.html