Discovered in 1570 by Diego García de Palacio, the ruins of Copán, one of the most important sites of the Mayan civilization, were not excavated until the 19th century. The ruined citadel and imposing ...

A 1,300-year-old Mayan altar at Copan reveals new interpretations suggesting that its carved hands conceal four dates from the calendar.

The early-morning sun burnishes the stone temples in Copan to a golden sheen, while on their facades, serpents writhe, jaguars crouch, birds preen and gods grimace in a pantomime that has been going ...

Skeletons unearthed from the ruins of the ancient city of Copán in Honduras have yielded clues to the collapse of the Mayan civilisation. Copán, now a Unesco World Heritage site, thrived during the ...

If the soaring ruins at Tikal conjure a civilization at the peak of its ceremonial hubris -- with temples that dwarf the very jungle -- the Copan ruins recall something more like a quiet city by the ...

When John [Lloyd] Stephens came here about 160 years ago, he speculated that the inscriptions contained royal history, that it was history written in stone. It turned out he was absolutely right. He ...

The monumental public architecture so characteristic of many ancient civilizations creates impressions of concentrated social power and high levels of labor appropriation. Nowhere is this more true ...

The Mayan Apocalypse has been perpetuated in pop culture – in movies and through splashy tabloid headlines – even though it’s been widely debunked in archeological circles. In Mexico and Central ...

2003 Report on the Joint UNESCO-ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring Mission to the Maya Site of Copan, 18-24 February 2003 1999 Report on the ICOMOS Expert Mission to Central America following the passage of ...