Remembered best for his elaborate drawings of ancient Mayan ruins, this nineteenth-century artist, architect, and explorer contributed to several bestselling, historically-focused travel books.
Before creating his famous Mayan drawings, he journeyed to Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, and Greece, and created detailed drawings based on his travels.
He died in his fifties while en route from Liverpool, England to New York, U.S.A.; his ship, the Arctic, sank following a collision with a French vessel.
He was born and raised in England, and he settled in central California during the Gold Rush years.
He and writer and explorer John Lloyd Stephens collaborated on several popular works, including Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (1841) and Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843).
