Copán Ruins - in Photos
Our First Trip to Honduras, In Search of Ancient Maya Ruins We Hadn't Seen Yet - Issue #44
One of the major ancient Maya archaeological sites, Copán, was a place we wanted to visit for decades. The first site Stephens and Catherwood visited, it was one of the last ones we got to see. While waiting, we visited plenty of other Maya sites, most of them in Mexico, though we also got to see Tikal in Guatemala and several others, including Caracol, in Belize. And finally, after decades of reading and watching documentaries about it, we made it to Copán.
We didn’t spend months trekking through dense jungle and floating through narrow rivers to get to Copán like explorers Stephens and Catherwood in 18391.
However, considering its relative closeness - and the fact that we are in the 21st century -, getting there from Phoenix took us just about 24 hours. This included two flights, five hours in an airport between these flights, and 4 hours driving from the airport to the nearest town to the ruins. We left home at 9 pm and got to our hotel at about the same time the next day. Still, it was absolutely worth it!
And the best part (or one of the best parts): we never saw the ruins crowded. In fact, we were often alone in a plaza, with no other visitors in sight. The hotel we stayed at in town was almost always empty; most nights we were their only guests. We expected it to be more popular, but we enjoyed the solitude.
Before I get more in-depth about the site and our trip, I think the best way to start talking about it is with an overview - through photos. So, without further ado, here is Copán:
Scarlet macaws - guacamaya roja - greeted us as we entered the site, even before we reached any ancient structures:
Then, I spotted a small turtle along the trail:
Eventually, we entered the site near the Great Plaza filled with stelae, most of them depicting Copán’s 13th ruler, Waxaklajuun-Ubaah-K’awiil, also known as 18-Rabbit.
After exploring the stelae - a stone forest of one king’s representation through different stages of his life -we walked on.
Climbed a small pyramid, Structure 4, then walked over to the ball court.
Near it, we spent time under the canopy, shading and protecting the Hieroglyphic Stairway (the longest known pre-Columbian text known so far in the Americas).
Eventually, we walked over to Temple 11, with another elaborate stela at its base.
And then, we walked around and climbed the temple-pyramid, and enjoyed the view of the Plaza and Copan Valley from the top.
After spending time in the shade of a huge ceiba tree growing on top of this pyramid, we descended on the other side onto the West Court of the Acropolis, where we found a replica of the famous Altar Q (the original is at the museum at the site), representing all the rulers of Copán, starting with the founder of the dynasty, and ending with the 16th.
Dominating this plaza - and the next - was Temple 16, encasing an earlier pyramid, the famous Rosalila. (Below it, two other structures encase the tomb of the founder of the Copan dynasty, K’inich Yax K’uk’Mo.) Years ago, I watched a documentary about the time it was discovered, and I have wanted to see it ever since. I finally did.
A short tunnel leads inside this pyramid, where we could see parts of the walls of Rosalila, behind thick glass. Not as colorful as I expected (apparently, the airflow from the outside, from when they opened the tunnel, faded some of the paint), the masks visible behind the glass are still impressive.
It was midday, sunny and warm, so we continued our visit in the longer tunnels within the adjacent pyramid.
We ended up behind the pyramid, at the edge of the site, where a path led us back towards the main plaza.
We spent more time here, but soon we made our way out of the site, to have time for visiting the museum. We knew we would return the next day to explore some more.
The museum turned out to be much more impressive than either of us expected. The entrance was through a tunnel, which opened up to the sight of the reconstructed Rosalila.
By the time we were ready to leave, we were out of water and snacks, and we had a kilometer to walk to our hotel. On the way out, we spotted a restaurant on the premises, and we headed over. For the next two days, as we returned to the site, this tiny restaurant was the spot for our lunch break.
The site was closing by the time we walked out. A shaded walking path, separated from the road by a wide stretch of vegetation, led back to town. Walking along this path, we passed two more stelae, one near the road, Stela 5, and another a bit farther, in the field. Though outside of the archaeological site’s gates, they still belonged to the ancient city.
Though one day might generally be enough to visit the most impressive sights in Copan, we needed three to see all of it. On our first full day, we didn’t even make it to Sepulturas, the residential area of nobility of the city, about a mile walk from the main site. We explored it on our second day and found the homes of many of the craftsmen of Copan, compounds surrounding their own small plazas.
On our last day, we revisited our favorite areas (and found out that we’d missed a small temple). I sat for a long time on top of Pyramid-Temple 11, in the shadow of the large ceiba tree in the midday heat, while Jeff went off to take more photos.
Looking down onto the remains of the ancient city, I imagined it at its height - during the reigns of K’ahk’Uti Witz’ K’awiil (Smoke-Jaguar), and Waxaklajuun Ubah K’awiil (18-Rabbit), and also at its last stages of decline, as the surrounding forests and farm lands disappeared, replaced by elaborate, colorful stone buildings and edifices.
A clear view of the rise and fall of a great civilization - history we could have learned from…
Stephens, J.L., and Catherwood, S., 1969, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, Dover Publications
What a cool spot to visit! And with your photos--especially that Hieroglyphic Stairway--I felt like I was right there with you... There's something magical about visiting the sites of ancient civilizations in Central America, and I'm glad for your posts so I can preview them!
The architecture of Copán has great detail and color!