Ian Graham

Ian James Alastair Graham (born 12 November 1923) is a British Mayanist whose explorations of Maya ruins in the jungles of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize helped establish the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions published by the Peabody Museum of Harvard University. Among his related works is a biography of an early predecessor, the 19th-century British Maya explorer Alfred Maudslay.

Ian Graham was born 1923 in Campsea Ashe, a village in the East Anglia county of Suffolk, England. His father was Lord Alastair Graham, the youngest son of Douglas Graham, 5th Duke of Montrose. His family also includes relatives in publishing, specifically associated with the Morning Post.

Graham went to Trinity College, Oxford in 1942 as an undergraduate in physics, but his studies were put on hold the following year when he left to enlist in the Royal Navy in which he served for the remainder of World War II, largely working in radar research and development. After the war his studies were resumed at Trinity College, Dublin from where he completed his bachelor's degree in 1951.

Graham’s first research position was a three-year project funded by the Nuffield Foundation and working in the small Scientific Department of The National Gallery in London. The objective of the project was to study the effects of solvents on paint films, though he also worked on the conservation of Old Master paintings. Following the completion of the project, in 1954 he took up photography semi-professionally and embarked on extensive travels. These activities led eventually to two books illustrated with his photographs. A visit to Mexico in 1958 initiated his long involvement with Maya archaeology.

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