Cape Cod Confidential

The Cape Cod Man Who Owned a Wonder of the World

Frequently I'm asked, "So what have you been up to lately?" My answer? The ancient Maya city of Chichen Itza in Mexico. For the past three years I've been working on a book about it.

Why Chichen Itza? Well, anyone who knows me knows there has to be a Cape Cod connection, and his name is Edward Herbert Thompson (right, pictured with a Maya "guide"). Here's his story, in brief (to  read a longer version, head over to my other site, American Egypt):

Every year more than a million visitors tear themselves away from the sand and surf of Cancun and other resorts along the shore of the Yucatan region of Mexico to visit Chichen Itza, the restored city of the ancient Maya. In July a worldwide poll named Chichen Itza one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. Tourists from all over the globe come to admire "El Castillo," the giant limestone pyramid; "The Great Ball Court," the largest sports facility of its type in the Mayan world; and the mysterious freshwater pool, the "Sacred Cenote." The lure of Chichen Itza as a tourist attraction is owed, in great part, to a Cape Cod man, Edward Herbert Thompson.

"I am an enthusiast by nature and so completely did I give myself to my work in the Yucatan that some of my contemporaries spoke of me as impractical," he wrote in his 1932 memoir, People of the Serpent. "I have squandered my substance in riotous explorations and I am altogether satisfied."

Thompson was born in 1857, and grew up in Worcester. He spent his summers on Cape Cod in Falmouth, Mass., where, as local legend has it, his father, Josiah, built one of the first vacation cottages. Josiah was in the brick trade and later moved the family s summer residence to West Falmouth, lured by the rich clay deposits he found there. He built a brick kiln and a lofty house.

During one of his summers on the Cape, Thompson fell in love with a ship captain s daughter, Henrietta T. Hamblin. The couple married in 1883 and settled in Falmouth.

In 1885, Stephen Salisbury Jr., a Worcester resident and son of one of the richest men in the United States, asked Thompson to join him for dinner. Salisbury had read a magazine article by Thompson in which he theorized that the Mayan ruins were the remains of the civilization that sprang from the lost continent of Atlantis. After the meal, Salisbury made Thompson a startling offer: Would the West Falmouth man be willing to move to the Yucatan to seek out ancient Maya sites and artifacts and conduct archaeological digs on his behalf? Senator George Frisbie Hoar, who was also at the dinner, promised Thompson a job as American Consul to the Yucatan. A few weeks later, Thompson, Henrietta, and their newborn daughter boarded a ship for the Yucatan, beginning what would become a 40-year adventure, one that would take him to the magical city known as Chichen Itza.

Thompson devised an ingenious method to get unlimited access to Chichen Itza for his archaeological investiations: He bought it. In 1894, he purchased for no more than $500 a nearby abandoned plantation that included, as part of the deal, the ruins of Chichen Itza.

The hacienda, like the ancient city, was in ruins. Thompson restored the main casa, and five years later he was the overseer of 45 servants and their respective families (to whom he became known as "Don Eduardo"), 300 cattle, 30 mules, and fields of sugar cane and fruit trees. In his spare time he excavated the ruins of Chichen Itza and made several significant discoveries.

In 1903 Thompson came up with his most audacious archaeological project. The ancient Maya had built Chichen Itza next to a large sink hole filled with water called a cenote. The cenote was believed sacred, a portal to the gods, and according to one early Catholic cleric, Maya from all over Mesoamerica would visit it to throw tributes and human sacrifices. Thompson persuaded Charles Bowditch of Peabody Museum at Harvard and Stephen Salisbury to finance an exploration of the Sacred Cenote.

The Sacred Cenote proved a difficult challenge to explore. This sunken pool was some 80 feet below ground level, and surrounded by steep cliffs. There was no easy way to reach the water's surface, and if one made it there, no way to investigate its depths. Thompson was undeterred. He imported a sturdy crane that supported a cable with a large dredging bucket. Over the course of six years he brought up thousands of artifacts, including many made of gold, copper and jade. The dredge also recovered several skeletons, which in his mind confirmed that the well had been the scene of human sacrifice.

Exposed!

In 1923 Don Eduardo revealed his dredging project to a correspondent from the New York Times. The reporter called it  "the most important find of archaeological objects ever made in the Americas." Three years later the Mexican government charged Thompson with theft of the artifacts, seized the hacienda, including Chichen Itza, and filed suit against Thompson  for 1.3 million pesos.

Thompson by that time was almost 70 years old, in poor health, and living full-time in West Falmouth. The lawsuit dragged on for years, and Thompson never returned to Yucatan. He died on May 18, 1935. In 1944 the Mexican Supreme Court ruled in favor of his heirs, who promptly sold Chichen Itza to a Yucatecan tourism operator.

The Peabody Museum eventually returned to Mexico much of the best  gold and  jade artifacts recovered from the Sacred Cenote. Some of the items are current exhibited in the museum. The legend of Don Eduardo has faded over the decades. The only "memorial" to Thompson can be found at Chichen Itza next to the washrooms. That's where the Mexican government put the bucket he used to dredge the Sacred Cenote.

Thompson is buried in Falmouth, but the only trace of the man who once owned Chichen Itza is Brick Kiln Road, named after the business he abandoned to roam the ruins of Mexico.

A longer version of this article originally appeared in Cape Cod Life magazine.