Copan Ruinas November 13, 2011 at 1:49 pm
These particular ruins are Mayan and are known to have the best stone carvings. Most of the other ruins around the area have embossed pictures while this one has deeply carved three dimensional figures on all sides of the monoliths. The figures were carved with stone tools and then brightly painted many times. Apparently the area was abandoned for a few hundred years due in part to lack of resources and disease, the trees that took over have destroyed and also preserved the site. Their roots have broken apart many of the buildings and helped to keep the elements off of others.
To say the trees are huge does not do them justice. In the pictures they look large but in person they’re unbelievable. Most of them have been dated to be three hundred years or more. Interesting and useless fact is that the Ceiba tree only gets wrinkly after three hundred plus years, before that they are very smooth. Excavations of the site were started in the late 1800’s and then left open to the elements for another hundred years or so. As you would expect much of the details were lost due to weathering, but there are still some statues that have been left in place, reasonably untouched and still retain their intricacies. Another interesting tidbit is that the main stairway to the largest temple building was found in a bad state so the original archaeologist put it back together. However, the stones didn’t get put back into place in the right order and for a long time afterwards the hieroglyphs were misread and misunderstood. Of course the stones were put together real good with proper cement so now they can’t be moved. There are signs indicating that fancy preservation techniques are being developed but as of now they are using the tarp technique (as seen in photos).
The site was used for three centuries or so. During which time it was rebuilt many times on top of the old structures whenever a new king took the thrown. From what I gather it was good to be royalty or closely related to them, otherwise life was hard.
Quick note about the sporting events, then I’ll leave the rest to Wikipedia. The game was played with a 2 – 3 kilo solid rubber ball. The players used knees and hips and shoulders. Whichever team won, their owner was sacrificed. His heart was taken out, drained of blood and then burned. Somewhere during that time to now, the rules seemed to have changed.
My overall take on the visit to the ruins was that they are awe inspiring and that there is a lot of Americas history that is not taught in schools of North America. Their civilizations were not that far away from what is today USA. One more interesting tidbit. Some of the statues have fully bearded men portrayed on them. However, the indigenous people that I have come across during my travels in the area don’t have much facial hair at all.
http://ungroundartwork.com/Copan-Ruinas-2011/album/
