Corporate Design Concept,
design and technical implementation of the website:
https://nabolom.org/

An atmospheric museum-research center, Na Bolom for many years was the home of Swiss anthropologist and photographer Gertrude Duby-Blom (Trudy Blom; 1901–1993) and her Danish archaeologist husband Frans Blom (1893–1963). Na Bolom means ‘Jaguar House’ in the Tzotzil language (as well as being a play on its former owners’ name). It’s full of photographs, archaeological and anthropological relics, and books.

The house tour provides a revealing insight into the lives of the Bloms and the Chiapas of half a century and more ago – though the picture presented of the Lacandones does dwell more on their past than their present. The Bloms bought the 19th-century house in 1950, and while Frans explored and surveyed ancient Maya sites all over Chiapas (including Palenque, Toniná and Chinkultic), Trudy studied, photographed and fought to protect the scattered Lacandón people of eastern Chiapas and their jungle environment.

Since Trudy’s death, Na Bolom has continued the thrust of the Bloms’ work, with the house operating as a museum and research center for the study and support of Chiapas’ indigenous cultures and natural environment. The library of more than 9000 books and documents here is a major resource on the Maya.

»We fulfilled our dream of living in San Cristobal in 1950 when we bought this house. The main building was built in 1891 and, despite its poor condition, it seemed ideal for our plans. We wanted to give the house a name and remembered Frans’ first visit to the Lacandones, who changed his name to ‘Balum’, which sounds similar and means jaguar. In Tzotzil, the language of the highland Maya, ‘Balum’ became ‘Bolom’, which sounds almost authentic to Frans’ surname. So we decided to call the house ‘Na Bolom’, which means ‘the house of the jaguar.«