Augustus Le Plongeon

Augustus Henry Julian Le Plongeon (4 May 1825 – 13 December 1908) was a British-American antiquarian and photographer who studied the pre-Columbian ruins of America, particularly those of the Maya civilization on the northern Yucatán Peninsula. While his writings contain many notions that were not well received by his contemporaries and were later disproven, Le Plongeon left a lasting legacy in his photographs documenting the ancient ruins. He was one of the earliest proponents of Mayanism.

Early life and careers

Le Plongeon was born on the island of Jersey on 4 May 1825. At 19, he sailed to South America and shipwrecked off the coast of Chile. While there he settled in Valparaiso and taught mathematics, drawing, and languages at a local college. In 1849 he sailed to San Francisco during the California gold rush to work as a surveyor, and also apprenticed to become a doctor of medicine. One of his accomplishments as a surveyor included drawing a plan for the layout of the town of Marysville, California in the Central Valley in 1851. Augustus was paid for his services as a surveyor with land deeds. He profited from the sale of these plots and this income would fund the majority of his archaeological expeditions.

Le Plongeon traveled to England and saw a demonstration for new photographic processes at The Great Exhibition. He then stayed in England to study photography under William Fox Talbot. Augustus wanted to test these methods in tropical climates so he spent time traveling to St. Thomas, Virgin Islands as well as Mexico, Australia, China, and the Pacific Islands. He returned to San Francisco to open a daguerreotype portrait studio on Clay Street. In 1862, he traveled to Lima, Peru and opened another photography studio and an "electro-hydropathic" medical clinic based on an early form of alternative medicine.