While researching cool images for my Victorian pulp adventure #ttrpg setting #Tektoa, I stumbled upon incredible drawings of Maya ruins by British artist Frederick Catherwood. In the 1840s, he journeyed to Central America alongside American travelogue writer John Lloyd Stephens. In an era before film and photography, they helped introduce magnificent ruins of the Maya culture to the Western world. #art 1/2
https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/titles/ancient-monuments-central-america/
@Glupinickname Yes, indeed. I've read all that, have been to those places, and have many photos of it up. Fascinating to read how things were in Catherwood's time, and Stephens. Highly recommended. And, if you are adventurous, I recommend going there, touching it, and imagining the largest civilization on earth 1,200 years ago. And, how all that was going on and had been going on for thousands of years, completely apart from and unknown to Europeans.
It's humbling and helps you find your place in the history of humans.
(I lived in Guatemala for 15 years).
@shuttersparks Count me as insanely jealous.
The author of "Jungle of Stone" does a really cool thing where he shows you Catherwood's picture of a certain Mayan ruin, and then takes a photo of the same place today, preferably from the similar angle.
It helps to demonstrate not just how beautiful those ruins are, but also what a painstakingly detailed job Catherwood did while drawing his images.