Alfred Maudslay: An English Life Dedicated to Mayan Study UNAM UK, Centre for Mexican Studies United Kingdom

Richard Maudslay, CBE, FREng, chairman of the British Mexican Society, recorded a short biographical video about his great-great-uncle, archaeologist Alfred Maudslay, to commemorate his contribution to Mayan archaeology, incorporating endearing family mementos such as letters and photographs.

At this event we are delighted to launch the video followed by a conversation with Antonio Saborit, Director of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico, and Claudia Zehrt, who was involved in the digitization of the Maudslay collection for the British Museum.

Alfred Maudslay (1850–1931) was a British archaeologist, referred to as 'The father of Maya archaeology'. Born in Norwood, London into an engineering family, he first visited Central America in 1870 while he was studying anatomy and botany at the University of Cambridge. After graduation, he entered the Colonial Service in Trinidad, Australia and Fiji (1872-1880), during which time he developed an interest in ethnography. He revisited Central America in 1880 and thereafter directed seven expeditions to the Mayan sites of Tikal, Yaxchilán, Copán, Quiriguá, Palenque, Chichén Itzá and Ixkún.

RICHARD MAUDSLAY CBE: He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Chairman of the British Mexican Society. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh. He was appointed CBE in 2006 for services to business in the North East of England. In 1985, following 7 years in Mexico, he became MD of NEI Parsons Turbine Generators. In 1992, he was appointed to run Rolls-Royce's £1.3Bn Industrial Power Group, covering all Rolls' non-aero interests, military and civil, including power generation and transmission, materials handling and marine propulsion, and joined the Rolls-Royce plc main Board.

ANTONIO SABORIT: He is the Director of the National Museum of Anthropology at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) of Mexico. A researcher at the Directorate for Historical Studies, he holds an undergraduate degree in modern languages, a master's degree in history from the School of Philosophy and Letters at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and a doctorate in history and ethnohistory from the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH). He has studied film at UNAM's University Cultural Center for Cinematographic Studies. Since 1995, he has participated in the initiative "Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage" at the University of Houston. Author of numerous distinguished works on anthropology and history, he has also translated many works of world literature into Spanish.

CLAUDIA ZEHRT: She is a Mayan archaeologist and formerly a curator at the British Museum. She has conducted research at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL), and has worked with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the University of Bonn in Yucatán, Mexico, and in western Belize. Her work with a Trent University project there was the topic of her PhD thesis on Fate and Fortune: Dynamics of social organisation at Minanha, Belize, focusing on the excavation of a small residential group and its life history, the indicators for social status and relations of its inhabitants, and its final abandonment during the Terminal Classic. In the Google Maya Project, she joined the Americas team at the British Museum as the lead Google Maya Project Curator to direct and manage the project’s output.