The majority of contemporary scholars in the field do not support diffusion from the Old World to the New, and the author of this book inclines toward the majority position. He would be less than honest, however, if he rejected the possibility of pre-Columbian contacts outright. After all, the Vikings did it.
A different question is whether an ancient sailor, thrown up on the Yucatán shore, could have survived. Fortunately, history does provide an answer to this question: In 1511, eleven members of a foundered Spanish ship reached Yucatán in a small boat. Two survived. One, Geronimo de Aguilar, was later rescued by the Spanish, but the other, Gonzalo de Guerrero, married a Mayan noblewoman, became a trusted vassal of Nachan Can, the lord of Chetumal, and, far from seeking to rejoin his countrymen, died leading the Maya in an attack on the Spanish invaders.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank Drs. Bill Ringle and George Bay for allowing him to visit their excavations near Ek Balam, Yucatán, in 1999. He is also grateful to his agent, Peter Rubie, and his editor, Jennifer Sawyer Fisher, and assistant editor Clarissa Hutton. He is particularly thankful for the conscientious editing job performed by one of the unsung heroes of publishing, copy editor Dave Cole, and he owes a debt of gratitude to the artist, who has perfectly captured the mood of the book. The author’s wife, Margaret, and his son, Karl, accompanied him back to Yucatán, so this is also their adventure. Most of all, however, he wishes to thank his many Maya friends, too numerous to be named. He is especially grateful, however, to his friends Mimi and Rosaura, for their continued friendship and hospitality, and it is to them that this book is dedicated.
Finally, the site of Lubaanah, mentioned in this book, is fictitious. For the sake of simplicity, I have taken the liberty in the text of condensing the two Maya words lubaan (“fallen”) and nah (“house”).
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2001 by Malcolm K. Shuman
Cover design by Michel Vrana
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5028-2
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The Last Mayan (The Alan Graham Mysteries) Page 22