ABSTRACT
As the brief epigram suggests, the captivating words of John Lloyd Stephens distilled a sense of landscape at the city of Copan and at other Maya locales for fascinated EuroAmerican readers more than 150 years ago. So did marvelous drawings and paintings by his traveling companion, Frederick Catherwood. These and other evocative renderings, before and since, yield an enduringly dramatic frame within which outsiders think about ruined Maya cities and their ancient occupants.
