Treasure Seekers: Code of the Maya Kings Page #5

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entirely unknown, with names

like Coba, Labna, and Sayil.

Stephens felt they were

racing against time.

Everywhere they went, they found

ruins collapsing into piles of rubble.

Catherwood even learned how to sketch

from his mule to save time.

At Uxmal, the artist drew the face of

a god on the side of a pyramid.

Years later, it was destroyed.

Catherwood's illustration is

our only record of it.

They performed the greatest service,

perhaps, in freezing in time

a set of observations

and images of a land that

no longer exists.

They're romantic pictures,

yet at the same time

they're remarkably accurate.

Many of Catherwood's renderings,

for examples, of the Maya at Uxmal

and Magna and other sites

are the first depictions

that we have of what Mayan people

looked like.

We had no earlier record.

In the town of Balankanche,

the explorers visited

an ancient well deep underground.

Catherwood was so inspired,

he began his memorable sketch

at the foot of the ladder.

It was the wildest setting

that could be conceived,

men struggling up a huge ladder

with earthen jars of water

strapped to back and head,

their sweating bodies glistening

under the light of the pine torches.

One of the last places they explored

was Chichen Itza.

Its architecture moved them more than

any other city on this second journey.

Most exciting of all was the revelation

that this city had been linked

to Copan and Palenque hundred

of miles away.

It was the first time in Yucatan

that we had found hieroglyphics

sculptured on stone

which beyond all question

bore the same type

with those at Copan and Palenque.

If one but could read it.

Finally, Stephens felt he had the

proof he'd been looking for.

The mysterious writing was unique,

unlike any he'd ever seen.

Now he could convince the skeptics

that the ruined cities had been built

by Native Americans.

These ruins are different than the

works of any other known people.

Of a new order, they stand alone.

In the nine months

of their second journey,

Stephens and Catherwood managed

to visit 44 ruined cities.

And gather some treasures for

an exhibit on their return.

But they paid a heavy price

for their adventures.

Malaria would haunt both men

for the rest of their lives.

John Lloyd Stephens would fight

the dread disease for ten years

before succumbing to it in 1852.

Frederick Catherwood

would die tragically

a few years later in a shipwreck.

This is the only image we have of him.

For there was another sad chapter

to their story.

The fate of the great exhibition

they held on their return to New York.

This fire started one night

in July of 1842,

and literally overnight it wiped out

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