Alfred Maudslay

Alfred Percival Maudslay (18 March 1850 – 22 January 1931) was a British diplomat, explorer and archaeologist. He was one of the first Europeans to study Maya ruins.

Maudslay was born at Lower Norwood Lodge, near London, England into a wealthy engineering family descended from Henry Maudslay. He was educated at Royal Tunbridge Wells and Harrow School, and studied natural sciences at Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1868–72, where he was acquainted with John Willis Clark, then Secretary of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. After graduation, Maudslay enrolled in medical school but left because of acute bronchitis.

After leaving Medical School, he moved to Trinidad, becoming private secretary to Governor William Cairns, and transferred with Cairns to Queensland. He subsequently moved to Fiji to work with Sir Arthur Gordon, its governor, and helped campaign against rebellious local tribes. Later he served as British consul in Tonga and Samoa. In February 1880, Maudslay resigned from the colonial service to pursue his own interests, having spent six years in the British Pacific colonies. He then joined his siblings in Calcutta during their round-the-world trip, returned to Britain in December, and then set out for Guatemala via British Honduras.

In Guatemala, Maudslay began the major archaeological work for which he is now best remembered. He started at the Maya ruins of Quirigua and Copan where, with the help of Frank Sarg, he hired labourers to help clear and survey the remaining structures and artefacts. Sarg also introduced Maudslay to the newly found ruins in Tikal and to a reliable guide Gorgonio López. Maudslay was the first to describe the site of Yaxchilán. With Teobert Maler, Alfred Maudslay explored Chichén in the 1880s and both spent several weeks at the site and took extensive photographs. Maudslay published the first long-form description of Chichen Itza in his book, "Biologia Centrali-Americana".

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