Frans Blom wearing his characteristic hat with a rattlesnake tail

Frans Blom (Frants Ferdinand Blom, August 9, 1893 in Copenhagen - June 23, 1963 in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico) was a Danish explorer and archaeologist. Species 27 species; see list of rattlesnake species and subspecies. ... August 9 is the 221st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (222nd in leap years), with 144 days remaining. ... 1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Copenhagen (IPA: , rhyming with pagan (the way the Danes themselves pronounce the name of the capital when saying it in English), or , with a as in spa; Danish IPA: ) is the capital of Denmark and the countrys largest city (metropolitan population 1,211,542 (2006)), at present made up... June 23 is the 174th day of the year (175 th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 191 days remaining. ... 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1963 calendar). ... Catedral The church of Santo Domingo. ... Chiapas is a state in the southeast of Mexico. ... See also explorations, sea explorers, astronaut, conquistador, travelogue, the History of Science and Technology and Biography. ... Archaeology or sometimes in American English archeology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ...

Frans Blom was born in 1893 in Copenhagen, Denmark to a middle-class family of antique merchants. He was restless and started travelling eventually arriving in Mexico in 1919 where he found work in the oil industry as a paymaster. Travelling to remote locations in the Mexican jungle he became interested in the Maya ruins that he encountered where he was working. He started drawing and documenting these ruins. He was contracted by the Mexican National Museum of Anthropology which financed some of his expeditions. He met Sylvanus G. Morley who brought him to Harvard University in Boston and here he took a Masters degree in Archeology. He was employed at Tulane University in New Orleans and during his tenure here he undertook several expeditions to Mesoamerica. In 1923 his studies at Palenque documented a number of features neglected by earlier researchers. In 1924 Blom discovered the Maya archaeological site of Uaxactun in Guatemala. His explorations in around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec gave the first scholarly reports of a number of sites of the Olmec civilization. In 1926 he was made head of Tulane's newly established Department of Middle American Research. 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... The Maya civilization is a historical Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, its spectacular art and monumental architecture, and sophisticated mathematical and astronomical systems. ... Photo taken c. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... Boston is a town and small port c. ... Archaeology or sometimes in American English archeology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ... Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana. ... New Orleans is the largest city in the state of Louisiana, United States of America. ... The cultural areas of Mesoamerica The term Mesoamérica is used to refer to a geographical region that extends roughly from the Tropic of Cancer in central Mexico down through Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to northwestern Costa Rica, and which is characterized by the particular cultural homogeneity... The Palace, Ruins of Palenque Palenque is a Maya archeological site near the Usumacinta River in the Mexican state of Chiapas, about 130 km south of Ciudad del Carmen (see map). ... An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been investigated using the discipline of archaeology. ... Uaxactun (pronounced Wash-ak-toon) is an ancient ruin of the Maya civilization, located in the Peten department of Guatemala, some 40 km (25 miles) north of Tikal. ... The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is an isthmus in Mexico. ... Monument 1, an Olmec colossal head at La Venta The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian people living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, roughly in what are the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. ...

In 1932 he was married to the American Mary Thomas, but six years later they were divorced and Blom acquired an alcohol habit which later forced him to retire from the university. Blom moved to Mexico where he met the Swiss photographer Gertrude Duby (1901-1993)) whom he married. 1901 (MCMI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ...

In 1950 Blom and Duby bought a large house in San Cristóbal de las Casas. This housee was dubbed Na Bolom - na meaning "house" in the Lacandon Maya language, and bolom (or b'alum in some Mayan languages) means "jaguar", and is also a pun on Blom's name (since "Bolom" or similar varitions was still a fairly common Maya family name, some of the Maya assumed it to be Blom's name.) The Bloms turned the house into a cultural and scientific center with rooms for visitors, with Gertrude continuing the enterprise for decades after the death of Frans. The house today functions as a museum. The Lacandon people are indigenous Native American Maya people who live mostly in the jungles in Chiapas, Mexico (until 1854 a part of Guatemala). ... Mayan languages constitute a language family of related languages which are spoken in Mesoamerica, from southeastern Mexico to northern Central America, and as far south as Honduras. ... Binomial name Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758) The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a large member of the cat family found primarily in the warm regions of the Americas. ...

Blom and Duby continued undertaking expeditions for the Mexican government. Blom died in 1963, at age 70. 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1963 calendar). ...

Books by Blom

• I de store Skove : Breve fra Meksiko (1923)
• Tribes and Temples (1926-1927)
• Conquest of Yucatan (1936)
• La selva Lacandona (1955), med Gertrude Duby

References

• Johansen, Steen (2003). Fra jaguarens hus - en beretning om mayaforskeren Frans Blom. Spring. ISBN 87-90326-51-2..
• Leifer, Tore, Jesper Nielsen and Toke Sellner (2002). Reunert: Det urolige blod - Biografi om Frans Blom. Høst & Søn. ISBN 87-14-29826-0..

External link

• Asociacion Cultural Na Bolom - website of the Na Bolom cultural center (Spanish) (English)