Désiré Charnay produced the first successful and widely disseminated images of archaeological sites in the Yucatán region of Mexico, where he spent three years traveling, writing, and photographing. In May 1860 he spent a week at Uxmal, where this photograph was made, setting up a darkroom at the ruin known as the Nun’s Palace. Charnay worked with wet collodion on glass plates, in a hot and often dirty setting, and each image required several attempts to produce a technical success. After returning to France in 1861, he spent the next year preparing the prints and text for his two–volume study on Pre–Columbian ruins, which included this print.