This blog post is part of of our trip to Guatemala and Honduras in Dec 2012 amidst the evocative Mayan ruins in a lush jungle, a quaint lazy colonial town and a tropical Caribbean beach.
Other articles in this series: Tikal Sunrise and Sunset Spots for Photographers | Astronomical Observatory of Uaxactun |Smoking Frog of Uaxactun | Following Frederick Catherwood | The Mayan Ruins of Copán |The Modern Town of Copán |
December 2012
I sit on a boulder besides a dusty single lane road not too far from the Guatemala-Honduras border. A centuries old grotesque statue of an old man lies half buried a couple of feet away. Rio Copán happily gurgles somewhere behind me. In front lies a lush verdant valley with dotted with fields of tobacco and plantation. From a nearby tree, a macaw suddenly takes flight, spreading its colorful wings luxuriously gliding over an unfelt air current drifting away silently into the horizon. A howler monkey crashes through the tree falling freely, hurtling to certain death towards the ground when at the very last moment it pulls itself up by the thinnest of a branch and swings away nonchalantly.
The landscape is shrouded by mist that swirls over two towns within half a mile of each other. On my right, the modern town of Copán is deep in slumber after the late night spent in Christmas revelry. It will wake up in a few hours. But not the ancient town of Copán on my left because it has been asleep for the last thirteen centuries.
But make no mistake. Copán is far from dead. Having witnessed its peak in the eighth century, it rapidly diminished in power sometime after that and was lost to the undergrowth until it was discovered by a dynamic duo of adventurers in the mid-nineteenth century. Befitting the ancient Mayan traditional belief in afterlife, today it lives a another life.
My 11 year old daughter and I arrived in Copán yesterday in the comfortable Hedman Alas sleeper bus. We had barely finished unpacking our luggage at the Yat Balam when we were told our guide was waiting for us. Dressed in a neoprene shirt, wearing a white hat at a rakish angle and sporting a salt and pepper stubble, Giovanni led us through the evocative ruins of Copán at a leisurely pace just under two hours. After having spent four bustling days on the spidering trails of Tikal yet covering less that a tenth of the ground, for the reputation it enjoys, we found Copán to be surprisingly compact.
But then the diminutive size is not the only surprise in store for unprepared visitors to Copán. In more than one ways, Copán is the yin to yang of Tikal.
The pyramid-temples of Tikal are massive. Some of them are the tallest structures erected in all of Americas before the advent of the Europeans. In stark contrast, the tallest temple in Copán - Structure 16, barely touches seventy feet in height. But the intricate art form of Copán handsomely compensates for the lack of size, for despite the massive masonry, the artistry in Tikal is rudimentary at best.
“This is the Paris of the ancient Mayaland. Baroque a thousand years before Baroque.” Giovanni waxes typical touristy eloquence. Except is not the typical touristy exaggeration.
The architect of the Copán renaissance is today known by a rather cute handle – King 18-Rabbit. The Medici of Mayaland, he was the most visionary ahau of the southernmost tip of the eighth century Maya world. Far away from the center of the Maya universe of Tikal, Calacmul and Palenque, King 18-Rabbit’s biggest achievement was to unite the local junta who had no inkling of the traditional Maya culture and rituals. He attacked and captured the nearby town of Quirigua and established himself as a victorious warrior king. Like many accomplished warriors, he set about to celebrate his triumph by commissioning huge temple-pyramids, stelae, ball-courts and a stairway that gave the sagging economy the much needed boost. In one well executed masterstroke, he brought the laggard town of Copán in sync with the late classic Maya boom. The rejuvenated artisans poured life into the stone. Over half a dozen stelae in the main plaza of Copán - each shows King 18-Rabbit in a different avatar in the ritual pose with a two headed centipede bar clasped to his chest - face the visitor confidently, protruding and using the newly acquired third dimension to show intricate details in a fashion unknown so far in the ancient Maya times.
Giovanni had shown us Copán yesterday. Today I was back to see it for myself.
On the quiet Christmas morning, there is nobody else at the ticket counter other than a German girl. Fortunately we walk in opposite directions.
I pass by Structure 16 in the West court that is built over the the beautiful Rosalila temple. Structure 16 is only partially excavated, an old time best practice that leaves something for the future archeologist armed with new tools and technology for the collective betterment of the humanity. After all, we have just started to scratch the surface of our understanding of the Maya world. Two examples of this “corrected” knowledge stand within a hundred feet of each other.
The beautiful ceremonial altar – unimaginatively named Altar Q, depicts a row of sixteen figures, four on each side, which until recently was considered a monument to the meeting of important Mayan astronomers. Today it has been deciphered to be a lineage of kings enacting a ceremony where royal power is transferred from one generation to another. A building complex towards the south side of the ruins was mistaken for a cemetery after early excavators found bodies buried into the plinth of the buildings. They were unaware of the Mayan tradition of burying the dead beneath the house so that the inhabitants could stay close to their ancestors.
“So as to be able to converse…” Giovanni filled in.
The study of the Maya world is an ever evolving science. The Mayan glyphs are still being deciphered. New theories are still emerging. We are still learning.
Rounding a turn, I came up to the east court that consists of a soccer ground size courtyard surrounded by steps and buildings. At the base of a building, the backside of Structure 16, is a dark intriguing gate. It leads to a labyrinth of trenches dug by early excavators over the years along the side of the structures that discovered the Mayan penchant for building new structures on top of olden ones.
I enter. The air inside the tunnels quickly turns musty. The long naked-bulb lit passages are lined with windows placed at regular intervals. Through these windows is visible workmanship of an older generation of Maya - carvings, stelae, and other structures. At one such window I get the fright of my life. I am standing with my forehead pressed against the plexi-glass trying to try to see through the condensation that had accumulated on the window. Without warning and accompanied by a loud squeak in the quiet passageway, an arc clears in front of me, as if an invisible wiper had been switched on. Startled I stumble backwards, my heart pounding, only to discover a Honduran standing in the trench behind the glass with a piece of washcloth in his hand and a huge devilish smile on his face.
I am sure I was not his first victim .
Back outside again, I use the ancient stone steps to climb to the top of Temple 22. Trying to make sense of the jumble of masks on the the Mayan portal, I do not notice the German girl until she speaks to me.
“Was it worth it?” She asks gesturing towards the tunnel. I nod my approval.
“Can you spare L300 so that I can buy a ticket? I have no money.”
I study her. Brown streaked hair, brown eyes, freckled, long thin legs tucked into harem pant and a dirty haversack, she was clearly a budget backpacker. 300 Lempiras - $15, is was not a lot of money. Even as my hand moved inches towards my wallet, I am reminded of a comment made by a venture capitalist in SFO a few years ago, “When they ask for money, give them advice. Give them money only when they come asking for advice.”
Putting the million dollar words to task – “Use them when you least expect results” – another advice from another VC, I challenge the German girl to use her wit. After all it is the morning after Christmas and there is nobody around us. If she tries to be sweet to the guard, perhaps he will let her in without a ticket? She stares at me with her brown eyes. But a few minutes later, from the top of a nearby structure, I see her ducking into the tunnel. Atta girl!
Finally I pause at the most iconic of the ruins at Copán. If Copán is Paris, then the Hieroglyphic Stairway is a cross between the Eiffel tower (by stature) and the Louvre (by function.) The 2200 glyphs on the 62 steps form the longest contiguous Mayan text ever. The sheer historical significance and the beauty of the Stairway acted as a catalyst for UNESCO to declare Copán a world heritage site. Though archeologists unanimously agree that the Stairway is a mess. The first fifteen steps were found in situ. The rest were lying in a pile and apparently were randomly placed. While the overall impact of the structure is jaw dropping, archeologists are still struggling to make sense of the text and associated dates. Imagine a later date civilization finding a tattered and thoroughly shuffled encyclopedia of the two world wars without any page numbers for clue. Normandy? Did that lead to the assassination of the Austrian prince?
Such a travesty. This has to be the most significant unsolved jigsaw puzzle of all times. I sigh and wring my hands.
The sun is almost overhead. A few bleary eyed tourists are starting to trickle in. It is time for me to return to the hotel and wake up my daughter.
As I pass the ticket counter, I realize $15 is all it takes to gain entry to the ruins of Copán. Back in 1841, when the duo of John Lloyd Steven and Frederick Catherwood came hacking through the jungle with their machetes, they had to buy Copán for a then princely sum of $50 before they could explore. The intrepid couple braved implemental weather, persistent insects, constant fatigue, and exposure to tropical diseases to rescue and document the site that today we know as Copan Ruinas. Steven published a treatise titled Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan that Catherwood illustrated with the most accurate drawings made under challenging circumstances. For somebody who did not then know that he was copying glyphs and not random pictographs, Catherwood’s drawings are so accurate that very recently David Stuart, a leading Mayanist, used Catherwood’s drawing to decipher two glyphs!
As I left the ruins behind, I realized that Tikal blew my brains but Copán stole my heart. Tikal is build by engineers, Copán by artists.
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