Copan, Honduras
For the last two days we have been on a trip back to the past, to a crumbled metropolis in Honduras that was part of a big civilization. Indeed, before Europeans discovered the Americas, there was a group of people holding an incredible wealth of knowledge and culture. The construction of the city named Copan is believed to have started by the first century. The glorious time seen by these ruins began with the accession of Yax K’uk’Mo to the city throne in the year A.D. 426. Thus began the ruling dynasty of Copan, which spanned four centuries, ending sometime around A.D. 822. For reasons not entirely clear, this place was the greatest center for arts, astronomy, and science in the Mayan world. The elaborate stelae erected at Copan are unparalleled any where in Mesoamerica, and the city royal astronomers calculated planetary movements, eclipses and a yearly calendar with the precision equaled only by modern science. Mysteriously, classic Mayan civilization abruptly collapsed in the Yucatan, Guatemala, and Honduras around A.D. 900. The collapse is all the stranger considering Mayan centers were independent city-states, not part of one great-centralized empire. One accepted explanation for the demise of Mayan civilization is that the population simply grew too big for the surrounding land to support. This certainly seems to be the case at Copan, where recent studies confirm massive deforestation and soil erosion just before the city’s collapse.
Today we visited Las Sepulturas (the tombs fist picture), a residential site, where archaeologists have found many tombs of nobles who were buried next to their houses, as was the Maya custom. Here we had a guided tour and besides the incredible view of this ruins we had some amazing birding, with some local and migratory birds including Rose-throated Becard, American Redstart, Turquoise-browed Motmot, and Rufous-naped Wren.
In the afternoon we had our last chance to take pictures and do shopping at the little but beautiful town of Copan where we had lunch and then took a bus to a coffee plantation where we saw the coffee process and then drove back to the Sea Voyager for our last two days of our trip.
