Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.
COPAN: GENERAL PLAN
From Maudslay's Archaeologia
Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.
stela H: copan
From Maudslay's Archaeologia
In northern Yucatan the capital of the last Mayan confederacy, Mayapán, had been destroyed in the middle of the 15th century; Chichén Itzá lasted as a city practically up to that time; and on the island of Tayasal in Lake Petén, southern Yucatan, there was a powerful and flourishing Itzá nation down to 1697. Of the architecture, manner of life, house furnishings, etc. of the different living Maya centers we have reasonably full descriptions left by different Spanish writers of the time. And they do not correspond in the smallest degree, to the monuments and buildings we have left at Copan and other ancient, abandoned sites. We are only able to trace a continuation of the type, and to know that the same hieroglyphic writing we find on the carved monuments of the older places, continued to be used until the Conquest. So that after sifting the various descriptions, we find that even the powerful cities of Tayasal and Utatlán, the Quiché capital, were but villages in comparison. The nearest link is Chichén Itzá, which seems to have been the last really great Maya city. Its architectural remains are indeed in size and extent comparable with the older sites; but in style and in the life of the people displayed by the carved and painted scenes, it is like comparing the Egypt of the Ptolemies with that of Ramessu and Hatshepsu. But Chichén Itzá itself was abandoned as the capital at least a century before the coming of the Spaniards. And to quote from the description of Mr. A. P. Maudslay, from whose great work most of our illustrations are taken, after saying: "I fear that this slight description of Chichén must wholly fail to convey to my readers the sensation of a ghostly grandeur and magnificence which becomes almost oppressive to one who wanders day after day amongst the ruined buildings"; and then after noting various differences between the ruins of Chichén and those of Copan and Quiriguá, he adds:
the absence of sculptured stelae, the scarcity of hieroglyphic inscriptions, and, most important of all, the fact that every man is shown as a warrior with atlatl and spears in his hand; the only representation of a woman depicts her watching a battle from the roof of a house in a beleaguered town, whereas at Copan and Quirigua there are no representations of weapons of war, and at Copan a woman was deemed worthy of a fine statue in the Great Plaza [see illustration, [Stela P]]. I am inclined to think that it must have been the stress of war that drove the peaceable inhabitants of the fertile valleys of the Motagua and Usumacinta and the highlands of the Vera Cruz [Copan], to the less hospitable plains of Yucatan, where, having learnt the arts of war, they re-established their power. Then again they passed through evil times: intertribal feuds and Nahua invasions may account for the destruction and abandonment of their great cities, such as Chichén Itzá and Mayapán, ...