Lord Kingsborough

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The title page of Antiquities of Mexico, volume 1.

For other persons named Edward King, see Edward King (disambiguation).

Edward King, Viscount Kingsborough (16 November 1795–27 February 1837), usually known as Lord Kingsborough, was an Irish antiquarian who sought to prove that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were a Lost Tribe of Israel. His principal contribution was in making available facsimiles of ancient documents and some of the earliest explorers' reports on Pre-Columbian ruins and Maya civilization.

The eldest son of George King, 3rd Earl of Kingston, Lord Kingsborough represented Cork County in parliament.

In 1831, Lord Kingsborough published the first volume of Antiquities of Mexico, a collection of copies of various Mesoamerican codices, including the first complete publication of the Dresden Codex. The exorbitant cost of the reproductions, which were often hand-painted, landed him in debtors' prison. These lavish publications represented some of the earliest published documentation of the ancient cultures of Mesoamerica, inspiring further exploration and research by John Lloyd Stephens and Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg in the early 19th century. They were the product of early theories about non-indigenous origins for Native American civilizations that are also represented in the Book of Mormon (1830) and myths about mound builders of Old World ancestry in North America.

On 27 February 1837, Lord Kingsborough died in prison of typhus, two years before he would have inherited his father's title. The last two volumes of Antiquities of Mexico were published posthumously.

The Codex Kingsborough is named after him.

[edit] Publications

(1830–1848) Antiquities of Mexico: comprising fac-similes of ancient Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics, preserved in the royal libraries of Paris, Berlin and Dresden, in the Imperial library of Vienna, in the Vatican library; in the Borgian museum at Rome; in the library of the Institute at Bologna; and in the Bodleian library at Oxford. Together with the Monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix: with their respective scales of measurement and accompanying descriptions. The whole illustrated by many valuable inedited manuscripts, by Augustine Aglio (9 vols.), London: A. Aglio (Vols. 1–5), R. Havell (Vols. 6–7), H.G. Bohn (Vols. 8–9). OCLC 5852094.

[edit] References

Wauchope, Robert [©1962] (1975). Lost Tribes and Sunken Continents: Myth and Method in the Study of the American Indians, Fifth impression, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-22687-635-7. OCLC 50928664.