20 replies to this topic

[poulsenll]

I have just started reading a new edition of John Loyd Stephens "Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan edited by Karl Ackerman. Ackerman has taken the original edition published in 1841, removed those parts that were not related to his descriptions of the archeological remains and tightened up the grammer producing a single volume from the original 2 volume publication. It was the original two volume work that came into the hands of Joseph Smith and John Taylor and resulted in Joseph Smith"s statement about Stephen's  work.

Quote

"I have read the volumes with the greatest interest & pleasure & must say that of all histories that have been written pertaining to the antiquities of this country it is the most correct luminous & comprihensive.— "

Ackerman has written an extensive foreward in which he gives details of Stephens' background and the circumstances surrounding the trip described in this edition.

One of the first things that I noticed was that Stephens had made two trips to Mexico, the second trip occurring shortly after publishing the description of the first trip. The two different trips had distincly different itinararies. The first, the one Joseph Smith read and complimented was restricted to Guatamala and the second to the Yucatan. To my knowledge, Joseph Smith never commented on the second volumes that came out in 1843 although he may have been aware of their existence.

It is of interest that some proposals of book mormon geography confuse these two volumes and quote the second set as though it were that described by Joseph Smith. Most scholarly proposals for BofM geography limit the Nephite and Lamanite cultures described in the Book of Mormon as centered in Guatamala and Chiapas (the region described in Stephens first publictions) with little or no indication of any significant presence in the northern part of the Yucatan peninsula. A recent proposal discussed on this forum suggested that Tulum was a BoM city. First of all, Tulum was occupied well after the BofM period and second it was visited by Stephens only on his second trip. It is unlikely therefore that Tulum was settled by Nephites although it may have been settled by believing Lamanites after the final destruction of the Nephites.

As I continue to study Stephens work I will try to present some of my insights as to why joseph Smith might have been  so enthused about Stephens descriptions and theories about the Mayans described in his first set of volumes.

Larry P

[calmoriah]

Very interesting topic.

Quote

removed those parts that were not related to his descriptions of the archeological remains

Just to make sure I understand, you are saying the travelogue commentary about contemporary surroundings and other nonancient stuff was removed.  Or were there legends and stories included that were also removed?

[poulsenll]

I have both versions available and will be checking for those types of problems.Most of what was deleted were extensive descriptions of local fauna and vegetation. He also remove descriptions of trips from US to Mesoamerican and return trips.

[poulsenll]

Stephens describes his trip from Lake Izabel to Guatmala City. Joseph Smith's interest in geography and his familiarity with the text, ( he edited the text for the second edition of the BofM) may have caused him to see a similarity between this decription and the description of the narrow strip of wilderness that seperated the Nephite and Lamanite cultures described in Alma 22. At any rate, after reading Stephens' narratve he changed his mind about where the narrow neck was located, placing it to the north of Guatemala.

Larry P

[Anijen]

Exciting stuff, thanks.

[poulsenll]

If you want to see for yourself why Joseph Smith thought Stephens and Catherwood"s book was a description of Book of Mormon lands buy the book.

Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan [Paperback]

John Lloyd Stephens  



John Lloyd Stephens (Author)
› Visit Amazon's John Lloyd Stephens Page
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author? Learn about Author Central

(Author), Karl Ackerman (Editor)

It is available from Amazon for $10.99

More to come

Larry P

[poulsenll]

Quote

Alma 22:27
proclamation throughout all the land, amongst all his people who were in all his land, who were in all the regions round about, which was bordering even to the sea, on the east and on the west, and which was divided from the land of Zarahemla by a narrow strip of wilderness, which ran from the sea east even to the sea west, and round about on the borders of the seashore, and the borders of the wilderness which was on the north by the land of Zarahemla, through the borders of ^dManti, by the head of the river Sidon, running from the east towards the west—and thus were the Lamanites and the Nephites divided.

A narrow strip of wilderness.

In Chapter 1page 23, Stephens begins a description of part of his journey from Lake Izabel near the eastern shore of Guatamala to Esquintla on the western shore. He describes this area near Gualan, about 80 miles in from the east coast, as follows:

Quote

Leaving Gualan, we had on our right the great range of the mountains of Vera Paz, six or eight thousand feet high. In an hour we commenced ascending. Soon we were in a wilderness of flowers; shrubs and bushes were clothed inpurple and rerd;and on the sides of the mountain, and in the ravines eding down to the river, in the wildest positions were large trees so covered with red that they seemed a single flower.

The mountains are located at the eastern end of the Cuchamatan Mountains that form a natural barrier between highland and lowland Mayan cultures similar to the barrier described in the Book of Mormon between the Nephite and Lamanite cultures. Although Joseph Smith may not have known this about the Mayan cultures, it is reasonable that he equated this mountain wilderness with the narrow strip of wilderness described in Alma 22. The further I get into this book the more I find that would have convinced Joseph Smith that Stephens was describing Book of Mormon lands and culture.

Edited by poulsenll, 18 May 2012 - 03:56 PM.

[poulsenll]

Here is the map of Stephens' travels.

[cursor]

Great stuff so far.
Any further observations, Larry?
(Particularly regarding the differences between the two versions.)

[poulsenll]

Cursor

The main differnce between the the two versions is length and verbosity. One of the nice things about the edited version is the inclusion of a brief history and biography about Stephens and information about why he made the trips. I have both versiones checked out from the Univ of Texas library. I have faculty status so only have to return tem if someone requests them. I have access to the Benson Latin American library so if there is anything I can look up for you in thir extensive collection, let me know. As far as I know nothing about ancient cultures was removed.

Following is Ackerman's description of the differences between the two versions.

Quote

The original edition of Incidents of Travel in Central America, Cbia-
pas, and Yucatan consists of 46 chapters containing 290,000 words in
two volumes; this edition contains one third of the text. A quarter of
the cuts I have made are outright deletions, eliminating Stephens' de-
scription of his voyage to and from the region and the short trip he
made to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In editing the rest of the text, I
have tightened the prose, eliminated repetition, and excised the long
historical digressions and anecdotes that Stephens addressed to the
readers of his day. The importance of and popular interest in Inci-
dents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan rest largely
on Stephens' description of the Maya ruins, and I have edited these

sections very lightly. In the chapter on Palenque (and in a few other

places), I have rearranged the text to enhance the flow of the narra-
  tive. I have not used ellipses to indicate compression, and I have used     .

brackets only where I have introduced a word or phrase for clarity.

Stephens, like many writers of his day, was a creative speller, and
his knowledge of Spanish was wanting. (The acerbic Fanny Calderon,
author of Life in Mexico, observed of this work that "there is not a
word of Spanish spelt right, even by chance.") Under Stephens' hand,
Campeche becomes Campeachy; Santa Elena, St. Helena; frijoles, fri-
goles; buenos dias, buenos dios. ("Guatimala," it should be noted,
follows the old Spanish spelling; then, as now, it referred to both the
city and the country) These misspellings reveal the character of the
narrator and suggest that the world he was traveling in was exotic
and new, and thus have been retained. John Lloyd Stephens was an
effortless writer, an acute observer, and a natural storyteller. It is
those qualities that the present edition seeks to preserve.

Larry P

[poulsenll]

Of particular interest is Ackerman's commentary on Stephens discriptions and commentary on the nature of the stellae and the purpose of the glyphic text.

Quote

A hundred years after his death, the leading Mayanists of the
day, including J. Eric Thompson and Sylvanus Morley, praised Ste-
phens for his "glowing descriptions of the wonders" in Central Amer-
ica and the Yucatan but flatly rejected the conclusions he drew about
the nature of Maya civilization. Copan, asserted Thompson, was not
the populated city Stephens described but a "vacant ceremonial cen-
ter." The images on the stelae were not Stephens' "kings or heroes";
they were gods or "calendar priests." Of the panels of hieroglyphs,
which reminded Stephens of "the Egyptian mode for recording the
name, history, office or character of the person represented," Morley
wrote: "They are in no sense records of personal glorification
and self-laudation like the inscriptions of Egypt, Assyria, and Baby-
Ionia ... Indeed, they are so utterly impersonal, so completely
nonindividualistic, that it is even probable that the name glyphs
of specific men and women were never recorded upon Maya
monuments."
Archaeologists today say that Thompson and Morley were
wrong on all three counts. They believe that Copan, for example, was
a well-populated city of r8,000 inhabitants by A.D. 800. The dwell-
ings of these people, built of "frail and perishable materials" as Ste-
phens suggested, are gone now, but thousands of house mounds re-
main. The stelae Stephens found scattered and half-buried are now
indeed thought to be "statues erected by different kings." And recent
strides in the decipherment of Maya glyphs reveal, as Stephens as-
serted long ago, that these texts are unequivocally the "written re-
cords of a lost people." Stephens made so few mistakes that the major
errors are noteworthy: contrary to his speculations, Uxmal was aban-
doned long before the Spanish conquistadores arrived, and Maya
temples do contain royal crypts.
In this age of such sophisticated tools as side-looking airborne
radar, EDM theodolites, and computer analysis of potsherd distribu-
tions, it is astonishing to think that two men on muleback, wandering
without maps in the wilds of Mexico and Central America, could
draw broad, accurate conclusions about the nature of Maya civiliza-
tion and suggest the course of scientific inquiry for generations to
come.

This of particular importance when we compare it to Omni 20-22.

Quote

20 And it came to pass in the days of Mosiah, there was a large ^astone brought unto him with engravings on it; and he did ^binterpret the engravings by the gift and power of God.
21 And they gave an account of one ^aCoriantumr, and the slain of his people. And Coriantumr was discovered by the people of Zarahemla; and he dwelt with them for the space of nine moons.
22 It also spake a few words concerning his fathers. And his first parents came out from the ^atower, at the time the Lord ^bconfounded the language of the people; and the severity of the Lord fell upon them according to his judgments, which are just; and their ^cbones lay scattered in the land northward.

There was no way that Joseph Smith could have missed the significance of this description of the stellae.

Larry P

Edited by poulsenll, 24 July 2012 - 10:38 AM.

[cursor]

Thanks a million for the quality feedback!

[cursor]

I just visited Amazon's reference to Incidents of Travel, abridged by Ackerman. When doing a "Look Inside," I see a scanned version of the original volume 2. Ackerman's abridgment is a single volume, as I understand. I want to make sure that I'm getting the right text. Can you, Larry, supply an ISBN for the abridgment that you have? Thanks.

Edited by cursor, 28 July 2012 - 11:05 AM.

[poulsenll]

Here is the information from the front of the book.

© 1993 by Karl Ackerman
All rights reserved
Copy Editor: Lorraine Atherton
Production Editor: Duke Johns
Designer: Linda McKnight
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stephens, John Lloyd, 180)-1852.
Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan / John
Lloyd Stephens: edited by Karl Ackerman.

p. em.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN 1-56098-210-1 (alk. paper)

1. Central America-Description and travel. 2. Yucatan (Mexico)-De-
scription and travel. 3. Chiapas (Mexico)-Description and travel. 4. Cen-
tral America-Antiquities. 5. Mayas-Antiquities. 6. Stephens, John Lloyd,
1805-1852- Journeys-Central America. 7. Stephens, John Lloyd, 1805-
1852-Journeys-Mexico.1. Ackerman, Karl. II. Title.
F1432.S883 1993
917.28-dc20    92-22110
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available
Manufactured in the United States of America
00 99 9⁸ 97 9⁶ 95 94 93 5 4 3 2 I
@ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Li-
brary Materials Z39-48-1984
For permission to reproduce illustrations appearing in this book, please cor-
respond directly with the owners of the works, as listed in the Illustration
Credits. The Smithsonian Institution Press does not retain reproduction
rights for these illustrations individually or maintain a file of addresses for
photo sources.
On the cover: Uxmal at dawn-the Temple of the Magician and the Nun-
nery. Photograph by Ian Graham.

Larry P

[poulsenll]

The one on Amazon is a different edition, slightly different ISBN, but appears to be the same book. The one you see when clicked is not the one you get when ordering it.

NB at the top of the view.

This view is of the Paperback edition (2010) from Cambridge University Press. The Paperback edition (1993) from Smithsonian that you originally viewed is the one you'll receive if you click the Add to Cart button on the left.

Larry P

[cursor]

Thanks for that, Larry. I just ordered mine -- used, like new, no markings, $16.52 (including shipping). It'll provide me with some fresh reading during my trip to UT for the FAIR Conference next week.

[ANACO]

I disagree with your conclusions about the book. But I respect your opinions.

You may want to view the 1st Edition of 1841 as that was what was presented to the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1842.

It's free at google books, the link below.

This footnote to an article at NAMI states:

7. See John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (London: John Murray, 1841).

http://maxwellinstit...apid=1135#_edn7


GOOGLE BOOKS

Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan ..., Volume 1, 1841

http://books.google....epage&q&f=false

Even the book's Contents have been bookmarked to the text.

Kind regards

[poulsenll]

Anaco

I have both volumes of the 1831 edition and there is little or no differences between the text that ackerman chose to include and that in the original volumes.

Larry P

[ANACO]

Quote

"I have read the volumes with the greatest interest & pleasure & must say that of all histories that have been written pertaining to the antiquities of this country it is the most correct luminous & comprihensive.— "  --Joseph Smith

Page 98 of Stephen's book:

Quote

The ignorance carelessness and indifference of the inhabitants of Spanish America on this subject are matter of wonder. In our own country the opening of forests and the discovery of tumuli or mounds and fortifications extending in ranges from the lakes through the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, mummies in a cave in Kentucky, the inscription on the rock at Dighton supposed to be in Phoenician characters, and the ruins of walls and a great city in Arkansas and Wisconsin Territory, had suggested wild and wandering ideas in regard to the first peopling of this country and the strong belief that powerful and populous nations had occupied it and had passed away whose histories are entirely unknown. The same evidences continue in Texas and in Mexico they assume a still more definite form.

Interesting that the Prophet Joseph Smith was referring to North America - backed up by Stephen's book.

Kind regards.

[Bob Crockett]

That is indeed interesting.