More than a century after the British explorer Alfred Maudslay took pioneering photographs and casts of some of the most incredible ancient Mayan objects and sites, digital technology is ensuring they can finally be widely seen. Photograph: British MuseumUnlike many European adventurers and explorers in the 18th and 19th centuries, Maudslay mostly left the archaeological sites intact. Instead of simply taking objects he used the latest photographic technology to record discoveries and made plaster casts of the monuments. The British Museum has more that 250 glass plate negatives from Maudslay’s travels and hundreds of casts. Maudslay’s casts of Mayan monuments still have untold stories, said Cooper, as the Mayan hieroglyphs were first translated relatively recently, in the 1980s.

Source: The Guardian November 29, 2017 17:57 UTC