Francisco Ximenez was a Dominican friar from Andalusia, Spain. He went to Guatemala in Central America and, while working as a missionary among Maya peoples, learned local languages such as K’iche’.
In the early 18th century, in Chichicastenango in the Guatemalan highlands, he copied a book of myths and history written in K’iche’ and added a Spanish translation. Because the original was later lost, Ximenez’s manuscript is the only source that preserves the Maya sacred book, the Popol Vuh, to this day.
