
Thomas William Francis Gann (13 May 1867 – 24 February 1938) was a
medical doctor
A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis ...
by profession, but is best remembered for his work as an amateur
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
exploring ruins of the
Maya civilization
The Maya civilization () was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. It is known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script). The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writin ...
.
Personal history
Thomas Gann was born in
Murrisk Abbey,
County Mayo
County Mayo (; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, it is named after the village of Mayo, County Mayo, Mayo, now ge ...
,
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
, the son of William Gann of
Whitstable
Whitstable () is a town on the north coast of Kent, England, at the convergence of the The Swale, Swale and the Greater Thames Estuary, north of Canterbury and west of Herne Bay, Kent, Herne Bay.
The town, formerly known as Whitstable-on-Se ...
,
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
, and Rose Garvey of Murrisk Abbey. He was raised in Whitstable, where his parents were prominent in the social life of the town. Gann trained in medicine in
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...
, England.
Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
named the heroine of ''
Cakes and Ale
''Cakes and Ale, or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard'' (1930) is a novel by the British author W. Somerset Maugham. Maugham exposes the misguided social snobbery levelled at the character Rosie Driffield, whose frankness, honesty, and sexual free ...
'' Rosie Gann.
Career
In 1894 he was appointed district medical officer for
British Honduras
British Honduras was a Crown colony on the east coast of Central America — specifically located on the southern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula from 1783 to 1964, then a self-governing colony — renamed Belize from June 1973 , where he would spend most of the next quarter century. He soon developed a keen interest in the colony's Mayan ruins, which up to then had been little documented. He also traveled in the
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula ( , ; ) is a large peninsula in southeast Mexico and adjacent portions of Belize and Guatemala. The peninsula extends towards the northeast, separating the Gulf of Mexico to the north and west of the peninsula from the C ...
, exploring ruins there.
Gann discovered a number of sites, including
Lubaantun, Ichpaatun, and Tzibanche. He published the first detailed descriptions of such ruins as
Xunantunich
Xunantunich () is an Ancient Maya archaeological site in western Belize, about 70 miles (110 km) west of Belize City, in the Cayo District. Xunantunich is located atop a ridge above the Mopan River, well within sight of the Guatemala border – w ...
and
Lamanai. He made important early explorations at
Santa Rita,
Louisville
Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city; however, by populatio ...
, and
Coba
Coba () is an ancient Maya city on the Yucatán Peninsula, located in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The site is the nexus of the largest network of stone causeways of the ancient Maya world, and it contains many engraved and sculpted stelae ...
. At
Tulum
Tulum (, ) is the site of a pre-Columbian Mayan walled city which served as a major port for Coba, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The ruins are situated on cliffs along the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula on the Caribbean Sea. T ...
he documented buildings overlooked by previous explorers, including a rare find of a temple with the
Pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...
idol still intact inside.
Midway through his career, in 1908 Gann became the honorary lecturer in Central American Antiquities at the new Institute of Archaeology of the
University of Liverpool
The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...
(not long after he had taken the Diploma there in Tropical Medicine). Liverpool subscribers funded several of his fieldwork seasons up to 1912.
Retirement
Thomas Gann retired as British Honduras's medical officer in 1923 when he wrote several books about his travels and explorations. He sold a large number of objects he had collected in the Mayan region to the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
in 1924.
Legacy
Thomas Gann is reflected upon by different contemporaries in many ways. Some like David
David Pendergast reflect on Ganns methods as destructive saying he ‘remained more destructive than protective of evidence from beginning to end’ This was supported by Gann's independent claims of blowing up numerous mounds all across Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico to the
Society of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL) is a learned society of historians and archaeologists in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1707, received its royal charter in 1751 and is a Charitable organization, registered charity. It is based ...
in 1897. Jared
Jared Milanich took a more comedic route when discussing Gann referring to him as a "mound mauler" for his past actions and excavation techniques. This implies that while he doesn't approve of his methods, he views them as something comical from a prior era. Author Cynthia Robin an anthropologist at
NorthWestern] described them as both "unsightly" and as "'Gann Holes'" Though some Authors such as J.E. Thompson cut Gann some slack saying, "Gann reflected the attitude of his period, which regarded excavation as the retrieval of works of art or "curios," not as a means of recovering history."
Works
Maya Indians of Southern Yucatan and Northern British Honduras''(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1918)
* with Thompson, J.E. ''The History of the Maya'' (London: Scribner, 1931)
* ''Mexico from the Earliest Times to the Conquest'' (London: Lovat Dickson, 1936)
Notes
References
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gann, Thomas
1867 births
1938 deaths
Writers from County Mayo
19th-century Irish explorers
20th-century Irish explorers
19th-century Irish travel writers
20th-century Irish travel writers
Belizean academics
Explorers of Central America
Mayanists
Irish Mesoamericanists
19th-century Mesoamericanists
20th-century Mesoamericanists
Mesoamerican archaeologists
19th-century Irish archaeologists
20th-century Irish archaeologists