Remarkable Remains of the Ancient Peoples of Guatemala Jacques VanKirk
This illustrated book provides a photo record of numerous sites and objects left behind by the Maya and other pre-Columbian peoples in Guatemala. Jacques VanKirk and Parney Bassett-VanKirk settled in El Peten, Gautemala, in the early 1960s, started a guide service, and spent the next 20 years photographing both well-known and obscure ruins that they visited. Many of the archaeological treasures have subsequently been stolen or destroyed, so that few if any records of them, other than the VanKirk's photographs, remain. The materials are organized to correspond with three regions of Guatemala: the south coast, the lowlands, and the highlands. Within these regions, photographs of well-known sites such as Quirigua, Tikal and Seibal are interspersed with images of lesser known, often small ones such as El Bilbao, Itsimte and Zaculeu. The 212 black-and-white and 85 colour photographs, accompanied by informative, anecdotal text, should be of interest to armchair travellers, collectors and archaeologists alike.