Copan: an excursion into artistry.

IN 1576 DIEGO GARCIA DE PALACIO wrote to the King of Spain telling of a discovery he had made....

"Near here, on the road to the city of San Pedro, in the first town within the province of Honduras, called Copan, are certain ruins and vestiges of a great population and of superb edifices of such skill that it appears they could never have been built by a people as rude as the natives of that province...." This letter is the first recorded documentation by a European regarding Copan.

Almost three centuries later British artist/architect Frederick Catherwood and North American writer/explorer John Lloyd Stephens teamed up on what would become one of the most important treks into the Maya world. Stephens travelled to England to ask Catherwood to join him in an expedition to explore and document the treasures of the Maya. The two met in London in 1838 and quickly became friends. They agreed to travel as a team and in 1839 they set off on their journey.

The expedition began with a mule-back trek through Belize, moving south to the Gulf of Honduras and finally reaching Copan. At that time the ruins were shrouded by an immense forest. Intrigued by the mystery surrounding the spot, Stephens paid a local farmer fifty dollars for the purchase of Copan. Almost immediately he and Catherwood began recording what they saw. Stephens opened up heavily forested areas to locate monuments and Catherwood traced straight lines through the woods to draft the first map of the area. Stephens later recalled, "Catherwood worked tirelessly and seemed obsessed with recording every single detail. There were even two monkeys in the trees that were laughing at him..."

As an architect, Catherwood emphasized the difference between Egyptian and Mayan pyramids. He looked at vaulted structures and compared them to palatial structures of other cultures. His drawings of the stelae, which were achieved with the aid of a camera lucia, were highly accurate given the scant resources available in those first years. In 1839 Catherwood writers of what is now known as Stele-C:

"... This idol in its ruined state, is one of the most beautiful in Copan, and in workmanship, is equal to the best remains of Egyptian art. Its present condition may give some idea of the scene of desolation and ruin presented at Copan. The whole region is in an overgrown forest and amidst the prostration and wreck of buildings and terraces, one "idol" has been displaced from its pedestal by monstrous roots, another locked in the close embrace and branches of trees, and almost lifted out of the earth, and another hurled to the ground and bound by large vines and creepers. Of this, the fallen part was thus completely bound to the earth, and before it could be drawn, it was necessary to unlace them, and tear the fibers out of the crevices..."

The "prostration and wreck" of buildings that Catherwood described in the 1800s is now a magnificently restored setting of sculpture, palaces and residential areas in northwest Honduras. Nestled in a verdant, mountainous agricultural area, the ruins of Copan have been managed by the Honduran Institute of Archaeology and History since 1952. The Proyecto Arqueologico Acropolis Copan, (or PAAC) currently underway, is a model for archaeological research. An international team of archaeologists, anthropologists and artists is working close by with the Hondurans in their research and preservation efforts. This exchange of information and expertise is unique to the Copan project and is a special source of pride to its two directors, Ricardo Agurcia and William Fash.

Copan research, initiated in the 1940s, has taken giant strides over the last decades. In 1975, Gordon R. Willey of Harvard University and his students, Richard Leventhal and William Fash, classified residential sites within the Copan valley into a series of settlement types. They also developed survey mapping and excavated a cross section of the residential area known as Las Sepulturas. Following Willey's project, the Proyecto Arqueologico Copan (PAC) was begun in the late 70s under the direction of Claude Baudez from Le Musee de l'Homme in Paris. The Baudez team continued mapping the Copan valley in order to get a better understanding of the metropolis and excavated the Main Group of ruins. (The Main Group is most familiar to tourists since it includes the famous ball court, stelae, and the temples of the rulers). They also began serious ichnographic and epigraphic studies of all the hieroglyphs and sculptures. In 1980, Capan was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

A year later William T. Sanders and David L. Webster from Penn State assumed the direction of PAC II. The primary goal of the second Phase was to further reconstruct what was already known of the socioeconomic organization of Copan and to increase understanding of the dynamic social changes that took place in the Late Classic period (ca. 600-900 AD). Most of their work was focused on complete excavations of the largest residential group in Las Sepulturas region situated to the east of the Main Group. The analysis of the structure and functions of these individual patio groups provided a breakthrough on information about how the Maya in residential (or suburban) areas lived.

Ricardo Agurcia, a field archaeologist who worked with Sanders in both phases remarked, "PAC II put some meat on the bones of the skeleton." Based on these scientific studies, our vision of the Maya has changed drastically from a society with a theocratic government to one with a secular governments; from one that spoke to us of an empty ceremonial center to one with a large urban population; from a conglomeration of temples to residences of the nobility; from the sculpture of gods to that of governors; from the writing of divination to that of historical data.

The residential areas of Las Sepulturas do not contain the monumental structures found in the main ceremonial centers. However, many of the items uncovered there helped to trace and establish the network of trade routes that existed throughout the Maya world. These items include obsidian (volcanic glass), grinding stones for corn, white fish and shell fish remains, as well as an abundance of pottery and sculpture. Mineral tracings from grinding stones excavated from Las Sepulturas match those found in a area to the northeast, once known as Petatilla. The shell fish relics suggest that these were brought from both the Caribean and the Pacific Ocean. Other animal remains have helped researchers establish Maya dietary customs - white tailed deer seems to have been a favorite food. Over 600 burial excavations at Copan, containing the largest selection of skeletal remains in Maya research, contribute to a wealth of information regarding disease and work-induced body stress. Pottery and other artifacts found in the burial sites are also being studied in their socio-cultural context.

At the height of its population, Copan had between twenty and twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Agurcia remarked, "the Maya world revolved around family lineages. Daughters were traded and polygamy was common practice, which is why we find more women than men buried together in the same site." One residential household contained 200 people, some of them foreigners. It is possible that these foreigners were domestic servants or hostages brought from other areas.

All lineages were controlled by the rulers and homage to these rulers was expressed in the sculpture and intricately decorated building facades for which Copan is unique within the Maya world. For example, Yax Pac, who ruled from AD 763 to 820, promoted a new type of hewn monument: the sculptured bench or the throne. Almost invariably, depictions of Bacabs, the four Maya gods which supported the earth, are also found supporting these benches.

Perhaps the most revealing of the PAC investigations has been the study of the hieroglyphic texts of Copan. Although firmly based on calendrical and astronomical data, these texts actually served to document the life and happenings of the Maya governors. It is now an accepted fact that the personages on the stelae of Copan are depictions of these same governors. This new interpretation is more in accord with what we know of other ancient civilizations, such as Egypt, where the majority of art is dedicated to extolling the Pharaohs and their families.

From the first excavations, artists have played an essential role in the Copan research by accurately recording and piecing together remnants of a sculpture legacy. Artist Barbara Fash was hired at the start of the PAC projects as a field illustrator. She credits Ian Graham of Harvard's Peabody Museum for training her to record the tracings using drawing techniques that had been developed by experts in this area. Graham, a Scottish explorer-scholar, had dedicated himself to drawing and photographing Mayan inscriptions for over thirty years. As Fash says, "I didn't just make up a style that I liked for illustrating the ruins. Ian Graham was extremely patient with me. In the beginning, I would come to him with shaded, freehand drawings and he explained how to work with photographs to achieve technically accurate line drawings that were universally accepted for recording and deciphering information."

Fash and her husband Bill, now co-director of PAAC, have been working at Copan for over ten years. Involved in all aspects of recording and illustrating artifacts and structures, Fash's first project was to re-draw existing works in need of correction and to begin work on previously unrecorded monuments. She says that while Catherwood's drawing were aesthetically beautiful they were not necessarily accurate. Her first successful reconstruction was a mosaic sculpture facade at Las Sepulturas. Currently, Fash is coordinating the Copan Mosaic Project begun in 1985 with Guatemalan architectural restorer Rudy Larios. This project is dedicated to the recording and restoration of the thousands of mosaic sculpture fragments that are found within the main group of buildings. Working together they have reconstructed portions of several sculpture facades from the Acropolis buildings. Fash also spends time training local people in the skills of recording, cataloguing and photographing sculpture. She is quick to give credit to everyone on the project, especially Larios who directs the restoration. Fash comments that Larios has a sixth sense about where pieces go and how to organize them. Them project receives funding and support from the Honduran government and USAID as well as other international and national agencies.

On any given day there are up to 150 people employed by the Copan Archaeological Project, including bone specialists, photographers, field excavators, masons, ceramic restorers and artists. During the dry season they turn their efforts to excavation and in the rainy season they concentrate on architectural restoration. The PAAC excavations are now open to visitors and recent discoveries have thrust the project into the public limelight. Agurcia has been successful in tunnelling through one of the main structures to find a "mummified" building within the walls. Still digging, he believes that the tomb of another important ruler may be buried here.

The work at Copan has given the economy of Honduras an exceptional boost. Traditionally, archaeology is a competitive field, with many scientists arguing about findings and sabotaging each others work. The Copan Project is different. As Agurcia puts it, "you don't find anyone throwing dirt at each other here." There is a general respect for new ideas and an openess to all schools of archaeology. The directors of PAAC projects have always used as much Honduran labor as possible for all the excavations and restoration. They have also been training local artesans in the hope that Copan will evolve into an important artist colony and cultural center.

In the spirit of Frederick Catherwood, Barbara Fash and others continue to render drawings for archaeological purposes as well as to fulfill their own artistic vision which is inspired by the ruins. Says Fash, "the mystery of Copan lives on through the talent of local artists and the dedication of many hard-working people... we are all excited about what the next twenty years will bring."

Sue Wood and Fernando Tripodi, freelance writer/photographers based in Washington, D.C., travel widely in Latin America and the Caribbean. Sincere thanks to the following companies and agencies for their assistance in preparing this article: American Airlines; Instituto Hondureno de Turismo; George Stuart; National Geographic; Jim Phillips; Margaret Almazan and Walter Bastian; the U.S. Department of Commerce; Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Library, Washington, D.C.; the U.S. Embassy, Honduras.