You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Copán' category.
on my way to utila (in august), i had a lay-over in a little city next to the copán ruins. i had less than an hour between a great night of sleep and my departing bus, so i ran around with my camera and decided to go back another day.
“The Pre-Columbian city now known as Copán is a locale in extreme western Honduras, near the Guatemalan border. It is the site of a major Maya kingdom of the Classic era.
The kingdom, anciently named Xukpi (Corner-Bundle), flourished from the 5th century AD to the early 9th century, with antecedents going back to at least the 2nd century AD.
The stelae and sculptured decorations of the buildings of Copán are some of the very finest surviving art of ancient Mesoamerica.
Many structures are elaborately decorated with stone sculptures, usually constructed from a mosaic of carved stones of a size that one person could carry.
The site also has a large court for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame. At its height in the late classic period Copán seems to have had an unusually prosperous class of minor nobility, scribes, and artisans, some of whom had homes of cut stone built for themselves, some of which have carved hieroglyphic texts.”
…excerpts from wikipedia
there were a bunch of macaws hanging out that have been living there for centuries, possibly since the mayan civilization that inhabited the city. it was very cool to hear them and see them fly.
i look forward to going back to learn more, appreciate all the details and imagine what life would have been like living there.
Recent Comments