Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Copán's 17th and final leader was
U Cit Tok',
assuming the throne in A.D. 822. His
only legacy is the unfinished Altar L, of rather lackluster quality. Some believe this to be
evidence of a sudden abandonment of Copán rather than a gradual collapse. As elsewhere
in the Mayan world, Copán's collapse is thought to have been at least partially the result
of exhausting the local ecosystem's carrying capacity, with a population thought to have
reached25,000atitszenith.Agricultural areaswereforcedfromthecentral partoftheval-
ley by urban expansion and the surrounding, less fertile hillsides eventually came under
heavy cultivation. Soil erosion, droughts, deforestation, and rainy season flooding became
the inevitable result. Though the city's core was abandoned, the valley was still somewhat
heavily populated after this time. Archaeological evidence suggests another drop in popu-
lation around 1200, after which the settlement patterns reverted to the small villages found
by the Spanish in 1524. The ruins were left to be reclaimed by the jungle.
Rediscovery
The first known European to lay eyes on the ruined city was Diego García de Palacios,
a representative of Spanish King Felipe II living in Guatemala and traveling through the
Copán Valley. He described the ruins in a letter written to the king on March 8, 1576, and
related that there were only five families living in the valley at the time, knowing nothing
of the ruins' history or the people who built them. A Spanish colonel by the name of Juan
Galindowouldbethefirsttomaptheruinsalmost300yearslater.InspiredbyGalindo'sre-
port, John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood included a stop in Copán in 1839 during
their famous journey to Mayan lands chronicled in
Incidents of Travel in Central America,
Chiapas and Yucatán,
published two years later. Inspired by this topic, British archaeolo-
gist Alfred P. Maudsley would make his way down to Copán in 1881. He returned four
years later to fully map, excavate, photograph, and reconstruct the site off and on until
1902. Other scholars, among them Sylvanus Morley and J. Eric Thompson, would follow
on his heels.
Present Day
In 1975, Harvard's Peabody Museum continued the investigations it had previously sup-
ported through Maudsley. Among its goals was the excavation of temples lying beneath
existing structures, a product of the customary manner in which the Mayans built atop ex-
isting temples and pyramids. They embarked on a project to tunnel through Copán's nu-
merous layers of construction and so have a glimpse into the city's history. Among the fas-
cinating discoveries was the 1989 unearthing of the Rosalila Temple by Honduran archae-
ologist Ricardo Agurcia. An even earlier temple, Margarita, lies beneath it. Rosalila was
found with its vivid ochre paint still visible. You can visit the excavation tunnel nowadays
and/or see a replica of Rosalila in the Sculpture Museum.
