Guatemala

Many historical artists were very fanciful in their depictions of ancient buildings, but Catherwood was famously accurate, using a so-called ‘Camera Lucida’ to capture the exact details of the buildings and guide his drawings.

Scientists in the PACUNAM project responsible for these recent discoveries believe that the ancient Maya population may have been as much as 10 times larger than experts previously imagined.

It’s a useful reminder of the destruction still caused by looting of  Maya archaeological sites in other, even more remote parts of the Guatemalan rainforest.