This scene of Mayan ruins in Yucatan by the English artist and architect Frederick Catherwood (1799-1854) is a favourite and has been since I first saw this picture in a book on archaeology I was given for my tenth birthday. This tiny book by CW Ceram, which is about the size of a postcard, captured my imagination from the start and no pictures more so than the mystery and atmosphere in Catherwood's illustration.
Catherwood's illustrated books, following his travels in Central America, introduced people to the civilisation of the Mayans, in the 1840s. Later he ran a store in San Francisco selling supplies to California gold rush miners.
SS Arctic
He drowned, at the age of 55, when travelling on the American ship, the SS Arctic from Liverpool to New York, after the Arctic was struck by a French ship in poor visibility. The ship sank slowly but there was no women and children first on board, with the six lifeboats mostly filled by the crew who ,ignoring discipline, crowded into them at the expense of the passengers, of whom only 28 were saved. No women or children survived and there was no subsequent enquiry. Calls for the number of lifeboats to be able to hold all the passengers and crew of ships were ignored.
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