Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
or of his father, Copán's first ruler, in power A.D. 426- 435. Subsequent kings appear to
have revered this king,
Yax K'uk'Mo',
and thought him to be semidivine. Archaeological
evidence has found that he was indeed a great shaman. The tomb of Yax K'uk'Mo' was
discovered in 1993 under the East Court of the Acropolis and the findings have yet to be
fully revealed.
Little is known about the next several leaders in the dynastic line established by Yax
K'uk'Mo', which ruled Copán throughout the entirety of its Classic Mayan history. It ap-
pearsthisdynastywasconsolidatingitsruleatthistimeandestablishingtraderouteswithin
the Mayan world and farther afield to powerful cities such as Teotihuacán. We know some
of the names of Copán's leaders before A.D. 628: Cu Ix, the fourth king; Waterlily Jaguar,
the seventh; Moon Jaguar, the 10th; and Butz' Chan, the 11th.
The Height of Power
The height of Copán's power came with the ascension to the throne of
Moon Jaguar
on
May 26, 553. Moon Jaguar is credited with the construction of the
Rosalila Temple,
found
buried beneath Structure 16 in 1993. Ruling A.D. 628-695 was one of Copán's greatest
kings,
Smoke Imix,
the city's 12th ruler, who consolidated Copán into a regional commer-
cial and military power. A stela at the nearby site of Quiriguá bears his name and image,
attesting tohisprobabletakeoverofthesite.Aprolificmonumentbuilder,SmokeImixleft
behind the most inscribed monuments and temples out of all of Copán's rulers. His suc-
cessor,
18 Rabbit
(A.D. 695-738), was also a prolific builder and pursued further military
conquest. He came to a very unfortunate end, however, being captured and beheaded in a
war with Quiriguá by its ruler, Cauac Sky.
Decline
Next in line was
Smoke Monkey
(A.D. 738- 749), the 14th ruler of Copán, who built
only one temple and erected no self-promoting stelae. The crushing blow suffered against
Quiriguá may have resulted in the king's sharing power with a council composed of the
city's nobility. Smoke Monkey's successor,
Smoke Shell
(A.D. 749-763), commissioned
the creation of Copán's magnificent
Hieroglyphic Stairway,
containing 2,500 glyphs nar-
rating the city's glorious past in an attempt to recapture the brilliance of the dynasty's hey-
day. By this time, however, it was evident that the city was in decline, a fact attested to by
thesubparconstructionofthemonument,whichwaslaterfoundcollapsed,itsnarrativeleft
scattered and out of order like a messy game of Jenga.
Yax Pac
(A.D. 763-820) was Copán's 16th ruler, who continued along the same lines of
beautifying the city. He left behind a fantastic monument known as
Altar Q,
depicting the
city's 16 kings carved around a four-sided square monument with Copán's first king, Yax
K'uk'Mo', passing the baton of leadership on to Yax Pac, thus legitimating his rule.
