Copán

Listen first. Somewhere above the trees, a harsh, rasping call breaks the morning quiet. Look up, and you may catch a flash of red, yellow and blue. These are scarlet macaws, the national bird of Honduras. They move freely around this ancient city, close to the stones that the Maya once carved in their image. The grass is soft underfoot. The air smells of damp earth and cut leaves. And all around you, half in shadow, stand the remains of one of the most refined cities the Maya ever built.

You are in the valley of the Copán River, in western Honduras, a short distance from the border with Guatemala. This was a royal city of the Classic Maya period, roughly the fifth to the ninth century. The Maya were a civilisation of city-states spread across southern Mexico and Central America. Copán was never the largest of them. But in art, sculpture and written history, few places come close. UNESCO recognised the site as a World Heritage Site in 1980.

The story of the ruling family begins in the year 426. A founder named K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo' arrived and established a dynasty here. His name roughly combines the words for sun, quetzal and macaw. Archaeologists believe he may have come from elsewhere in the Maya world. For about four centuries afterward, sixteen rulers in his line governed this valley. Each one built on top of the work of the last. That habit of building over the past is the key to understanding Copán.

Start in the Great Plaza, the wide open lawn in front of you. Standing across it are tall carved stones called stelae. They are portraits of kings, cut in deep relief from a local volcanic stone. That stone is soft when freshly quarried and hardens over time. This allowed sculptors to carve almost in the round. Look at the faces, the feathered headdresses, the jade ornaments. Many stelae once carried bright paint, and faint traces of red can still appear in sheltered corners.

Most of the finest stelae here belong to one ruler. He was the thirteenth king, known as Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil. Early researchers nicknamed him Eighteen Rabbit, and the nickname stuck. Under his reign, Copán reached a peak of artistic confidence. Then came a surprise. In 738, he was captured by the ruler of Quiriguá, a smaller neighbouring city that had once been under Copán's influence. The inscriptions record that he was put to death. A golden age ended with a shock.

Now walk toward the Hieroglyphic Stairway, protected under a large canopy. This is the longest known text in the Maya world. More than sixty steps rise up the face of the temple, and every step carries carved glyphs. Together they hold well over two thousand signs. A later ruler commissioned the stairway around the middle of the eighth century. Many scholars read it as a statement of continuity after the loss of Eighteen Rabbit. The message was clear: the dynasty still stands.

Here is something most visitors miss. When the stairway collapsed centuries ago, many blocks fell out of order. Early restorers reset them as best they could, but the sequence was jumbled. So today, much of the text cannot be read straight through. It is a little like a book with its pages shuffled. Epigraphers, the specialists who decipher ancient writing, have spent decades working out which block once sat where.

Just beside it lies the ball court, with its long sloping walls and narrow central alley. Players here kept a heavy rubber ball in motion, mostly using their hips. The game carried deep religious meaning, linked to creation stories and the movement of the sun. Look along the tops of the side walls. Carved stone heads of macaws line the edges. The bird you heard at the entrance is watching you from the stone, too.

Climb up into the Acropolis, the raised complex of temples and courtyards behind the plaza. This is where the royal family lived, worshipped and was buried. At its eastern edge, something unusual happened. Over the centuries, the Copán River shifted course and cut straight into the side of the Acropolis. It sliced away part of the hill. The result became an accidental cross-section, with layer upon layer of older buildings exposed, one on top of another.

That layering leads to the second great surprise. Deep inside one temple, archaeologists found an earlier temple, almost completely intact. They named it Rosalila. It was discovered in 1989 through tunnels dug beneath the later building. The Maya had not destroyed it. Instead, they carefully covered it, plaster and painted decoration still in place, and built a new temple on top. A full-size replica stands in the nearby Sculpture Museum, painted in deep reds and greens.

Before you leave the Acropolis, find Altar Q, a low square block of stone. Around its four sides sit sixteen seated figures. These are the sixteen rulers of the dynasty, from the founder to the last great king. The founder appears to be passing a symbol of power to the final ruler. It is a family tree carved in stone. Few objects anywhere in the Maya world tell a dynasty's story so directly.

The outside world learned about this place in 1839. An American writer, John Lloyd Stephens, arrived with the English artist Frederick Catherwood. In his own account, Stephens describes buying the ruins from a local landowner for a small sum. Catherwood's careful drawings showed readers abroad that these carvings were the work of a sophisticated civilisation. By the ninth century, though, royal power here had faded. Population declined, and the forest slowly took the city back.

Take a moment now before you walk out. Notice how the light falls through the tall trees onto the grass of the plaza. Look again at the nearest stela, at the patient detail in a carved hand or a feathered crest. Behind you, the town of Copán Ruinas waits a short walk away, with its cobbled streets and tiled roofs. And somewhere overhead, the macaws are calling again, just as they did when these stones were new.