Copan, Honduras
Copan Valley, Honduras
Copan near to the Guatemalan border of Hondoras contains the most southern Maya ruins dating from 400 AD and 800 AD from the classical Mayan period. This collection of ruins is tucked between the Montagua River and the Copan Valley in the western part of the Honduras. The ruins are a grouping of amazing plazas, temples, a ball court, an acropolis and many stairways.
The acropolis consists of two courts and the western court contains two temples constructed by Yax Pac. One of these temples is intended to represent a doorway to heaven. The most astonishing of all the stairways is one known as the Stairway of Hieroglyphics. The 63 steps of the stairway are each intricately carved with at least 2,500 hieroglyphs and represent the longest known, surviving text by the Mayan civilisation.
The sculptures on the steps represent gods, animals, birds and mythological beings. The ancient Mayan texts are believed to represent the lineage-tree all Copan kings from Yak Kuk Mo and Smoke shell. A clay figurine of Copan’s founder Yak Kuk Mo was moved from its original site next to the Tomb of the Royal Scribe to the Copan Museum.
Collectively the Plazas contain 38 stone pillars or stelae (dating 711 – 736), several Mayan pyramids and altars. The highest of the pyramids is 40 m tall. The Las Sepulturas is a grave site situated a mile the Copan Acropolis is a fine example of the Mayan burial practise whch involved burying the dead in rock catacombs below family dwellings.
The city was a major religious and social centre of the Mayan empire and once housed up to 20,000 people. The citizens of the city would have included artists, astronomers and scribes. The fall of the city seems to have come about from a combination of the death of a prominent ruler and a hypothesised ecological disaster around 738 AD. The human remains found on the site show a lot of damage caused by disease and malnutrition.
