A. Ledyard Smith

Who was A. Ledyard Smith?

A. Ledyard Smith was an American archaeologist who worked on various projects in the Maya region on behalf of the Carnegie Institution, including Uaxactun. From 1958 to 1963 he led investigations at Altar de Sacrificios in Guatemala together with Gordon Willey on behalf of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. From 1963 to 1969 he investigated the site of Seibal, also in Guatemala.

Ledyard Smith was born on 18 October 1901 in Milwaukee and died of a heart attack on 5 December 1985 in Needham, Massachusetts. His brother Robert Eliot Smith was also a Maya archaeologist.

Ledyard Smith went to school in Lausanne in Switzerland and later went to St. Paul's School in New England. He graduated from Harvard University in 1925. In 1927 he became involved in Maya archaeology and became a member of staff of the Carnegie Institution's Division of Archaeology. He took part in field research in the Maya region in the 1920s and 1930s at Uaxactun in the Petén Department of Guatemala. After excavating at Uaxactun he turned his attention to the Guatemalan Highlands. In 1950 he started work with the Carnegie archaeologists excavating at Mayapan in the Mexican state of Yucatán.