Virtual exhibition on the Ancient Mayans

A collaboration between the British Museum in London and digital platform Google Arts and Culture will allow audiences to become familiar, through Internet, with fascinating objects and details from the Ancient Maya civilization .

In the website of Google Arts and Culture , available from today, there are several items on display, including the digitized collection of memoirs and documents of British explorer Alfred Maudslay (1850 – 1931), which was kept so far in the archives of the British Museum.

The collection offers a “unique view” of this ancient civilization, which flourished between 250 and 900 B.C. in the area which now is part of Guatemala , the South of Mexico , Honduras , Belize , and El Salvador , according to Amit Sood , project leader of Google Arts and Culture, a platform created by Google in partnership with several museums.

Maudslay traveled extensively across Central America during the decades of 1880 and 1890, and was one of the first to scientifically document – with the technology of his time – archeological sites such as Tikal or Quiriguá .

The collection includes 250 negatives from Guatemala and over one thousand pages of documents, including the explorer's journals, and archeological elements scanned in 3D to be digitally reassembled and displayed.

am