Juan Pedro Laporte Molina (7 August 1945 – 22 January 2010)Arroyo 2010. was a prominent

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

n archaeologist best known for his work on the ancient

Maya civilization The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, archit ...

.Roesch 2010. He studied in the United States at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

, in which he enrolled at the age of nineteen. After just one year he transferred to the

Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia National School of Anthropology and History (in Spanish: ''Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, ENAH'') is a Mexican Institution of higher education founded in 1938 and a prominent center for the study of Anthropology and History in the A ...

("National School of Anthropology and History") in Mexico. He continued his studies at the Universidad Autónoma de México from 1972 to 1976, from which he graduated with a doctorate in archaeology. He worked as a research assistant at the

Museo Nacional de Antropología The National Museum of Anthropology ( es, Museo Nacional de Antropología, MNA) is a national museum of Mexico. It is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico. Located in the area between Paseo de la Reforma and Mahatma Gandhi Street with ...

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

from 1967 through to 1976. Laporte worked at various archaeological sites while he was in Mexico, including

Tlatilco Tlatilco was a large pre-Columbian village in the Valley of Mexico situated near the modern-day town of the same name in the Mexican Federal District. It was one of the first chiefdom centers to arise in the Valley, flourishing on the western sho ...

Chichen Itza Chichen Itza , es, Chichén Itzá , often with the emphasis reversed in English to ; from yua, Chiʼchʼèen Ìitshaʼ () "at the mouth of the well of the Itza people" was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the Terminal ...

and

Dainzú Dainzú is a Zapotec archaeological site located in the eastern side of the Valles Centrales de Oaxaca, about 20 km south-east of the city of Oaxaca, Oaxaca State, Mexico. It is an ancient village near to and contemporary with Monte Albá ...

. He first began working as an archaeologist in Guatemala in the 1970s, and was the head of the School of History of the

Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala The Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC, ''University of San Carlos of Guatemala'') is the largest and oldest university of Guatemala; it is also the fourth founded in the Americas. Established in the Kingdom of Guatemala during the Spani ...

(USAC) for more than thirty years.León 2010. He first entered USAC in 1977, soon after returning from Mexico. In 1974 he carried out investigations at the Maya archaeological site of

Uaxactun Uaxactun (pronounced ) is an ancient sacred place of the Maya civilization, located in the Petén Basin region of the Maya lowlands, in the present-day department of Petén, Guatemala. The site lies some north of the major center of Tikal. The ...

in the northern

Petén Department Petén is a department of Guatemala. It is geographically the northernmost department of Guatemala, as well as the largest by area at it accounts for about one third of Guatemala's area. The capital is Flores. The population at the mid-2018 o ...

of Guatemala. Between 1974 and 1976 he carried out archaeological investigations in

Antigua Guatemala Antigua Guatemala (), commonly known as Antigua or La Antigua, is a city in the central highlands of Guatemala. The city was the capital of the Captaincy General of Guatemala from 1543 through 1773, with much of its Baroque-influenced architec ...

, which has since been designated as a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

, and around

Lake Izabal Lake Izabal (), also known as the Golfo Dulce, is the largest lake in Guatemala with a surface area of 589.6 km² (145,693 acres or 227.6 sq mi) and a maximum depth is 18 m (59 ft). The Polochic River is the largest river that drai ...

. Juan Pedro Laporte died in January 2010 from a lung tumour. An obituary in Guatemala's ''

Siglo Veintiuno ''Siglo Veintiuno'' or stylized ''Siglo XXI'' is a Guatemalan daily newspaper. Founded in 1990 by José Rubén Zamora, the paper earned a reputation for independent, high-risk reporting. In 1995, its staff won the International Press Freedom Awar ...

'' newspaper described him as "the father of Guatemalan archaeology". He was one of the founding editors of the '' Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala'' ("Symposium of Archaeological Investigations in Guatemala"), which has been published annually since 1987.Asociación Tikal. Arroyo 2010. His books include ''La organización territorial y política en el mundo Maya Clásico : el caso del sureste y centro-oeste de Petén, Guatemala'' and ''Bibliografía de la arqueología guatemalteca''.

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