Edward Wyllys Andrews was a Mayan archeologist and one of the few Mayan epigraphers. As a child Andrews collected geological and paleontological artifacts and developed an interest in the Maya by his early teens. At the age of 15 he spent a summer at Mesa Verde on an archeological dig with Byron Cummings. In 1933 he enrolled at the University of Chicago to take a course with Robert Redfield where he worked at the Field Museum on Maya hieroglyphs and herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians). The following summer he accompanied Silvanus G. Morley to Chichen Itza, Yucatan. He then enrolled at Harvard College and continued graduate school at Harvard University until he received his PhD in 1942. By the age of 21 he had published five journal articles, mostly on Mayan hieroglyphs.
During World War II Andrews served with the Navy and after the war he joined the Central Intelligence Agency. After several years he returned to his archeological work as Research Associate of the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University. He spent 40 years of his life studying the lowland Maya. Thought he always was interested in hieroglyphs, in the years following 1939 his research encompassed sculpture, architecture, and ceramics. One of his most well-known expeditions was a 12-year excavation and restoration of Dzilbilchaltun in Yucatan, which unveiled evidence of a 3000-year continuous occupation of the site, evidence of the longest continuous occupation in the area. He died in 1971 at the age of 54.
References
Stirling, Matthew W.
1973 E. Wyllys Andrews IV, 1916-1971. American Anthropologist 75(1):295.
Wauchope, Robert
1972 Edward Wyllys Andrews, IV, 1916-1971. American Antiquity 37(3) 400.
Written By: Melissa Lorentz, 2008
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