Frederick Catherwood Biography

Frederick Catherwood

Illustrator Frederick Catherwood explored and documented Mayan ruins with American travel writer John Lloyd Stephens. Although both were amateurs, they are considered founders of American archaeology, thanks mainly to their bestseller Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan (1843), which is still in print. Catherwood created atmospheric, finely detailed lithographs with the help of a camera lucida (a camera-like optical device). His images of Chichen Itza, Palenque, Copan, Uxmal, and other Mayan sites beautifully evoked a lost world for generations of armchair archaeologists.