Historians generally believe that the cigar was invented by the ancient Mayans, who would wrap the tobacco in a palm or a plantain leave and smoke it. Archaeologists have even discovered an ancient Mayan pot from the 10th century that depicts a Mayan man puffing on one of these very early cigars. When Christopher Columbus came over to the New World he was one of the first Westerners to discover tobacco. The local Indians showed him how they smoked the tobacco leaves and Columbus and his lieutenants quickly adopted the habit. It was around this time that manufacturers in Spain started wrapping the dried tobacco in papers rather than leaves.