The Peabody Museum Expedition of 1909-1910

In order to complete the report on Tikal the Peabody Museum had requested from Teobert Maler, which he had not finished because he wanted additional money, the Museum organized a Expedition in 1909.

Alfred Tozzer requested a leave of absence from teaching at Harvard to lead the expedition. He chose Raymond Merwin as his assistant. The expedition would take five months or more and be over the Boston winter. They did not actually leave from Boston but met in New Orleans to begin the trip. From there they sailed aboard a freighter to Belize City in British Honduras. They traveled up the Belize River to El Cayo to actually begin their work.

The two major goals of the expedition were mapping the site of Tikal and renewing the Peabody's permit to do archaeological work in Guatemala. Because of this second goal much of Dr Tozzer's time and effort went into travel to Guatemala City to meet with government officials. Raymond was left to explore and dig.

Besides the trip to Tikal they also visited the known sites of Nakum, Yaxha and Naranjo and located several previously unknown sites of Holmul and Cival (called Seibal 2 at the time) among others.

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