Alice Dixon Le Plongeon

Augustus, ca. 1875Alice Dixon Le Plongeon (1851-1910) was an English photographer, amateur archaeologist and traveller, who spent 11 years living and working in southern Mexico and Central America photographing and studying the ruined cities of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, whose origins and history were at that time obscure. Together with her amateur archaeologist husband, Augustus Le Plongeon, she developed several speculative theories concerning the origins of the Maya, which are today completely discounted by modern Mayanist scholarship but contributed to the emergence of Mayanism. Alice was active in the Theosophical Society and was a friend of Annie Besant.Her epic poem "A Dream of Atlantis" (1909-11) was published in "The Word Magazine", a Theosophy serial. She was also an acquaintance of James Churchward, who wrote extensively about Mu (Lemuria). Although her interpretations of the ancient Maya have been rejected, her documentation and recording of monuments and inscriptions at several Maya sites remains a useful repository of information.

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