September 14, 2025 • 17 mins
This extensive collection of sources primarily focuses on Maya civilisation, particularly the city of Copan, offering a detailed exploration of its history, archaeology, and linguistic aspects. The texts meticulously document hieroglyphic inscriptions, stelae, and altars, providing chronological data, correlation with Christian dates, and insights into Maya art and architectural development across the Early, Middle, and Great Periods. Additionally, the sources examine the broader context of Maya civilisation, discussing agricultural practices, theories on its origin and decline, and the distribution and evolution of Mayance linguistic groups.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, think about this for a second. An ancient civilization, right,
and they're not just you know, stacking up stones for pyramids.
They're actually measuring vast stretches of.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Time accurately, yeah, precisely, and even predicting things like solar eclipses.
It's well, it's pretty astounding even now, it really is.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
They weren't just builders, they were astronomers, mathematicians. Their whole
intellectual game was just on another level than maybe.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
We sometimes assume, absolutely defies a lot of expectations.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Okay, so let's unpack this a bit. Today we're doing
a deep dive into the ancient Maya city of Copan.
It's over in western Honduras, now, right, And we've got
a stack of sources here, everything from the glyphs they carved,
you know, the inscriptions themselves.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Which are incredibly detailed, so.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Accounts from explorers who saw it way back, plus all
the modern archaeology.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, a real mix.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
And this isn't just about looking at old stones, is it.
It's about trying to unlock the well, the sheer brain
power of this civilization.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Exactly how sophisticate that they really were.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So our mission today is basically to give you a
solid but concise handle on why Copen is so important.
We'll cover their amazing time system, the whole mystery around
why things eventually wound down there the decline. By the end,
you'll have a shortcut to being really informed, maybe pick
up some surprising facts, get a fresh look at, you know,
(01:21):
human ingenuity.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
We want to help you connect the dots too, not
just what they found, but why does it matter? You know,
what does it tell us?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Good point, encouraging that critical thinking about the past, right.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
How these old achievements kind of reshape how we see
things even today.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Okay, let's start with the puzzle. Imagine being a researcher.
Say back in nineteen ten, you're looking at these Maya.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Glyphs, amazing carvings, right.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
And you know there's meaning there, keep meaning, but you
just you don't have the key.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
The code hasn't been cracked.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
They hadn't figured out the HOTE ten yet. That five
year period we now know was so crucial.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
The supplementary series. They saw it, but I didn't know
it was about the moon, about eclipses.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
It was like staring at a language you can't read,
frustrating it, but.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Oh absolutely but then came the breakthroughs and identifying that
ho Ton, that five year cycle that turned out to
be fundamental, like a core rhythm of their civilization you
see repeated everywhere. Okay, and the supplementary series. Well, figuring
out that it was a lunar calendar with eclipse data
baked in that was huge. It's totally accepted now without reservation,
(02:26):
a massive leap forward.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So this wasn't just like basic arithmetic. The scale of
their time keeping, yeah, what was that?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Like? Monumental? Truly, our sources stress this. The Maya were
the only people of the New World who developed a
chronological system of sufficient accuracy to exactly measure really vast stretches.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Of time, the only ones in the Americas.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, think about that, tracking gates potentially thousands of years
back and forward too. It puts them in a unique category.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And they didn't just think it, they wrote it down exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
They developed this incredibly flexible graphic system, the glyphs to
record it all. So the intellectual toolkit and the recording
method were equally sophisticated.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You know what it just blows my mind is how
obsessed they were with time, Like the fact that maybe
one half of the characters we've deciphered are exclusively with
the counting of time. Half.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
It tells you everything about their focus, doesn't it. Even
early guys like Brenton kind of sense that that time
was central. Yeah, And these glyphs, these symbols, they're often
more about astronomy, about the cosmos, than about say, King
so and So's birthday. Right, they're predicting solar eclipses, mapping
out these enormous cycles of time, looking centuries ahead. Sometimes
(03:40):
it paints a picture of a society just deeply fundamentally
connected to the stars and the calendar.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Okay, so this amazing focus on time, it wasn't just
happening in theory. It was grounded in a real place.
Let's go there.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Let's picture Copan. Okay, it's in western Honduras, like we said,
on the north bank of this river valley, pretty lush.
I imagine elevation, well, Popino, I thought around nineteen hundred
feet seems the most likely number.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
And the wildlife the sources mention at least seven kinds
of cats, jaguars, ocelots. Wow, and they weren't just you know,
wandering around, they were hunted. Their skins, big status symbols
worn by rulers, top nobles.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Cloaks made of jaguar skin. That sends a message.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Definitely power, prestige, connection to the wild.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Maybe, and the city center itself, the acropolis or the
main structure as Gordon called it.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, And what's interesting is it wasn't like someone drew
up a master plan on day one and they build
it now. They grew gradually. They kept adding temples, pyramids,
platforms over centuries, layer upon layer, so it evolved exactly.
It really reached its peak form around nine point one
seven point zero point zero point zero in their calendar.
That's about seven seventy one a d for us, a
(04:51):
high point.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
And it became this big complex right with different courtyards, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
The Eastern and Western courts, the court of the Hieroglyphic Stairway,
the famous one, and temples facing onto these plazas, lots
of double eleven, Double twenty two, Temple twenty six. Shows
a real focus on ritual, on public space. Absolutely, and
they weren't just building big. They had kirks right like
that shrine of the toad.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Uhhh yeah, name for a giant toad carving grotesque sculptures
around it too, definitely stands out from the more formal stuff.
And I love this detail about how they worked with
the stone, sometimes leaving natural bits inclusions they call them, right.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Like a weird novel or a vein of color in
the rock.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
And they'd either just smooth it off or on some
steel a like steal A three, they actually carved around it.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, it shows this interesting mix, doesn't it, respect for
the material, but also you know, artistic skill to adapt.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Where did they get the stone?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Quarries were about a kilometer away up in the hills,
and for the really fine carving, they likely used a
braiding tools, ribbing away with harder stone or sand pains.
Taking work must have been and these little details they
fit into this bigger picture of artistic change at Copan.
You can try their sculpture developing how so well. Even
(06:02):
the really early statues like on stale Ape or Still seven,
they're described as maybe somewhat lifeless, a bit stiff, okay,
but you can already see the potential. They clearly forecast
the sculptural brilliance that would come later, maybe one hundred
years on. The seeds were there, And another interesting thing
they reused old stuff, especially these early altars, the banded altars.
(06:25):
They'd stick them in the foundations of newer monuments.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Oh, really like recycling kind of.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
We see alter x under steal a five, alter y
under steal a four. Maybe at safe work. Maybe it
was honoring the past.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Probably a bit of both makes sense. And those early stela,
the big stone slabs, they mostly had initial series dates, right,
these really long dates counting from the beginning of time.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, foundational dates anchoring everything, and the figures carved on
them often very formal, stiff, symmetrical front view, heels together,
staring straight out.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Like posing for a very serious portrait.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Pretty much those scale of twenty three is cool. It
shows a figure and profile. So they were experimenting early on,
trying different things.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Okay, let's talk about one of the most famous bits
of Copan, that hieroglyphic stairway on Mound twenty six.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Ah, yes, monumental.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It wasn't just stairs, right, it was like a book
made of stone.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Exactly covered in glyphs. Estimates are maybe about ninety steps.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Originally ninety steps of writing, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Down the middle at intervals. These big statues of seated
figures heroic scale, probably rulers are gods?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Wow? Were they all there?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Sadly no, only one was found still in its original
spot in situ.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Ah shame.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
What happened? Well, a huge landslide hit that area sometime
before the explorers Glindo and Stevens got there in the
eighteen thirties. Oh wow, Steve's actually drew it described a
scene of extreme desolation and ruin glyphs all tumbled, mixed up,
a real mess.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
So studying it must have been a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
A massive challenge, but incredibly rewarding. By piecing together the
glyph they could read, they found dates covering the Early,
Middle and Great periods.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
So a long history record there.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Definitely, And they think it was dedicated around nine point
one six point five point zero point zero, which is
about seven hundred and fifty six eighty rate in Copin's prime.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
But here's the bit that gets me. It wasn't just history,
was it. They found prophetic dates?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yes, this is fascinating. Yeah, they recorded the date ten
dearer point zero point zero point zero on several monuments
Ye Stella ja alter s Stella eight. But when they
carved those ten nine zero Tori oo point zero, but
it's still way off in the future, centuries ahead.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
They were carving dates for the future.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Seems like it not just recording what happened, but marking
future milestones looking ahead.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
That's a different way of thinking about time, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
These dates could hardly been other than prophetic. It underlines
that deep almost philosophical engagement with time cycles, like they
saw the future as predictable, something you can map out
and even carve in stone. Makes you wonder about their
work world view.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It really does. So Copan reaches this incredible peak artistic
brilliance complex timekeeping. But then what the story doesn't end happily?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Does it? No, it doesn't. But it's not quite the
sudden collapse people sometimes imagine for.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
The Maya Right, you hear Maya collapse and picture everything
falling apart overnight exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
But the evidence suggests it was more of a gradual cessation,
a slow winding down across the whole Old Empire region,
really kicking in after ten point two point zero point
zero point zero, which is around eight hundred and seventy
eighty a fade out, not a crash.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Interesting, so things are shifting even.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Before that yeah, you see changes within Copan itself. By
around seven oh one AD. That's nine point one three
point zero point zero. The main center of the acropolis
was the main settlement Old Copan, An earlier area became
less important. Okay, but here's the paradox. The period after that,
starting around seven to sixty one a d. Nine point
one six point zero point zero point zero was the
(09:58):
Great Period. This was the absolute peak of art, architecture, culture,
maximum efflorescence.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So they were creating their most amazing stuff right when
things were maybe starting to fray around the edges.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It seems that way for a good while, Copan was
the esthetic center of the male world, peak creativity, even
as the underlying system might have been weakening.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
So why why did it decline? What are the theories?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, scholars had debated this a lot. Our sources lay
out a few main ideas. One from Spinden was about decadence.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Decadence like society got lazy, kind of.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
He argued, the art itself showed it. He got super elaborate, flamboyant, extravagant,
and he linked that artistic style to a supposed decline
in morals, politics, society itself. Art reflecting a weakening core
HM plausible.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I guess what else?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Another big one is clinatic change, pushed by Huntington. He
looked for patterns of drought.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Basically, ah, the climate change angle very relevant today, right.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
He suggested periods of less rain, longer dry seasons, making
farming tough. Maybe spreading disease did the evidence back then?
There were some connections. Yeah, the source mentions satisfactory, not
to say almost startling agreements between his climate cycles and
Maya history. But but the writer were drawing on didn't
quite buy it as the main reason. They felt unable
(11:15):
to accept this hypothesis as the principal explanation, although maybe
it played a part, a contributing factor perhaps.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Okay, so not the smoking gun. Maybe what was the
third theory? The one the source writer like best.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That was agricultural collapse proposed by Cook. The idea is
basically that they overfarmed the land. How intensive maize cultivation,
growing lots of corn combined with constantly burning the land
clear repeated burning off of the weedy growth standard practice,
but maybe unsustainable.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Long term exhausted the soil exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Leading to forests being replaced by grassy savannahs land that
just couldn't support the large population anymore. Farming became no
longer possible on the scale needed. Wow, loving the land
to death. Essentially, that's the idea. The source argues this
theory best explains the progressive abandonment. It suggests a slow
(12:07):
environmental breakdown caused by their own success in a way,
a really sobering thought about sustainability.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Definitely. So after eight hundred and seventy eight y or so,
with these pressures building, people started leaving.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, a major exodus from the Petin region, the old
empire heartland. Some moved north into Yucatan think Chichenitza. Others
went south into the highlands of Guatemala.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
So not an end to Maya civilization, but a shift,
a relocation.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Precisely a transformation.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Let's switch gears a bit. What about when the Spanish arrived,
did they encounter Copan?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
They did, though much later. Of course, there's this account
of Hernando de Chabe's fighting his way in.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Was it easy?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Not at all? He faced Copanklal, the local ruler, and
this huge army more than thirty thousand warriors.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
From the area thirty thousand.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, the town even had a moat. The Spanish got
resolutely beaten off at first, took heavy losses.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Wow, so they put up a real fight.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Definitely, Actually the Spanish went out militarily, but the source
notes the Copenhag Goes only submitted apparently in secret. They
continued to render worship to their idols. Cultural resistance.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Fascinating And how did we even start learning about Copan
in the modern era? Who are the key figures?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well, there were early mentions like fantasy Guzmann in sixteen
eighty nine, but he was just reporting hearsay about superb edifices.
He never actually saw it. Okay, The real game changer
was John Lloyd Stevens in eighteen thirty nine. He got there,
saw the scale of the art, and even though he
couldn't read the glyphic.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Right, the code wasn't crapped yet he.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Acutely gauged the importance of what he saw. He wrote
this amazing, glowing description that just captured people's imaginations in
the West. But Copan on the map, he kicked things
off big time, and that paved the way for Alfred P.
Modsley late nineteenth early twentieth century. His work was incredible.
The greatest archaeological investigation ever accomplished in the Maya field.
Up to that point, what.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Did he do?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Meticulous stuff, photograph monuments, making plaster casts, preserving a record,
essential work. Then you had institutions like the Peabody Museum
sending ex editions finding an enormous amount of new material.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Even with setbacks. I read about John G. Jowens being
buried there.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, sadly he died during field work and was buried
right in front of Stella d a reminder of the
challenges they faced. But they kept building on that knowledge base, and.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
A huge piece of that knowledge was figuring out how
their calendar lined up with ours right. The correlation crucial, and.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
That wasn't easy either. It relied heavily on later Spanish accounts,
but also on Native Maya texts written after the conquest
using the Latin alphabet.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Like the Books of Chillon Bilum exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And the Chronicle of Oxcotscab. These texts became like rosetta
stones for time. They mentioned specific Maya time period's cartoons,
these twenty year cycles, alongside known historical events.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Oh I see, so they say this event happened in
this cartoon, and we know when the event happened in
our calendar.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Precisely, we know when the Spanish first showed up fifteen eleven,
when Merito was found in fifteen forty two, when certain
key figures died like Anaposhiu in fifteen thirty six, or
arrived Bishop Torel in fifteen sixty two, Bishop Landa died
fifteen seventy nine. Linking these fixed points to the catoons
mentioned in the Maya texts allowed scholars to bridge the
(15:19):
two systems. It was painstaking work, but it anchors Maya history.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Amazing detective work, and the calendar itself wasn't static was it?
The year bearers changed right?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Another layer of complexity. The year bearers are the specific
day names that could begin the Maya year. In the
Old Empire period, the main inscriptions used days called kaban Ekis, Manik,
and eb, but later in the New Empire, associated with
places like Chichinetsa and texts like the Dresden Codex, they
used a different set as nub akbal LaMotte and ben
Huh Why they change and then by the time the
(15:50):
Spanish arrived, the system documented in sources like the Codex
trocurtesianis used another set Cock, Cohn, Maluke, and X.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Three different systems, well, three.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Different sets of year bearers within the same basic calendar structure.
The shift likely reflects cultural changes, maybe influence from other
groups like the Toltecs invading Yucatan. It just shows how
dynamic their system was. It wasn't frozen in time, It
evolved over centuries.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Wow, it just keeps getting deeper and more complex, it
really does. So Okay, we've covered a lot. What's the
big takeaway here? We've plunged into Copan, this city of
incredible timekeepers, amazing artists, with a history that ends not
in this sudden crash, but this slow fade out, likely
driven by a mix of environmental stress and maybe societal factors.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
And hopefully you listening have gained a much richer picture
of the Maya, something beyond just pyramids and mysterious disappearances.
It really shows how patient science studying these records can
unlock human history in surprising ways. It challenges our assumptions.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Okay, here's a final thought to leave you with something
to chew on. Think about the civilization so incredibly focused
on time, measuring it, courting it, projecting its centuries into
the future.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, even prophetic dates.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Right, But despite all that focus on understanding time cycles,
they couldn't ultimately foresee or prevent their own decline.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
That's a powerful point.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So what lessons are there in those calendars, in the
story of their relationship with the land in Copen's fate,
What does it tell us about civilization cycles, about our
own relationship with our environment and the future we're building
or maybe undermining right now.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Deep questions. Yeah, makes you think
Okay, think about this for a second. An ancient civilization, right,
and they're not just you know, stacking up stones for pyramids.
They're actually measuring vast stretches of.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Time accurately, yeah, precisely, and even predicting things like solar eclipses.
It's well, it's pretty astounding even now, it really is.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
They weren't just builders, they were astronomers, mathematicians. Their whole
intellectual game was just on another level than maybe.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
We sometimes assume, absolutely defies a lot of expectations.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Okay, so let's unpack this a bit. Today we're doing
a deep dive into the ancient Maya city of Copan.
It's over in western Honduras, now, right, And we've got
a stack of sources here, everything from the glyphs they carved,
you know, the inscriptions themselves.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Which are incredibly detailed, so.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Accounts from explorers who saw it way back, plus all
the modern archaeology.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, a real mix.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
And this isn't just about looking at old stones, is it.
It's about trying to unlock the well, the sheer brain
power of this civilization.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Exactly how sophisticate that they really were.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So our mission today is basically to give you a
solid but concise handle on why Copen is so important.
We'll cover their amazing time system, the whole mystery around
why things eventually wound down there the decline. By the end,
you'll have a shortcut to being really informed, maybe pick
up some surprising facts, get a fresh look at, you know,
(01:21):
human ingenuity.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
We want to help you connect the dots too, not
just what they found, but why does it matter? You know,
what does it tell us?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Good point, encouraging that critical thinking about the past, right.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
How these old achievements kind of reshape how we see
things even today.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Okay, let's start with the puzzle. Imagine being a researcher.
Say back in nineteen ten, you're looking at these Maya.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Glyphs, amazing carvings, right.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
And you know there's meaning there, keep meaning, but you
just you don't have the key.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
The code hasn't been cracked.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
They hadn't figured out the HOTE ten yet. That five
year period we now know was so crucial.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
The supplementary series. They saw it, but I didn't know
it was about the moon, about eclipses.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
It was like staring at a language you can't read,
frustrating it, but.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Oh absolutely but then came the breakthroughs and identifying that
ho Ton, that five year cycle that turned out to
be fundamental, like a core rhythm of their civilization you
see repeated everywhere. Okay, and the supplementary series. Well, figuring
out that it was a lunar calendar with eclipse data
baked in that was huge. It's totally accepted now without reservation,
(02:26):
a massive leap forward.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So this wasn't just like basic arithmetic. The scale of
their time keeping, yeah, what was that?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Like? Monumental? Truly, our sources stress this. The Maya were
the only people of the New World who developed a
chronological system of sufficient accuracy to exactly measure really vast stretches.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Of time, the only ones in the Americas.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, think about that, tracking gates potentially thousands of years
back and forward too. It puts them in a unique category.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And they didn't just think it, they wrote it down exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
They developed this incredibly flexible graphic system, the glyphs to
record it all. So the intellectual toolkit and the recording
method were equally sophisticated.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You know what it just blows my mind is how
obsessed they were with time, Like the fact that maybe
one half of the characters we've deciphered are exclusively with
the counting of time. Half.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
It tells you everything about their focus, doesn't it. Even
early guys like Brenton kind of sense that that time
was central. Yeah, And these glyphs, these symbols, they're often
more about astronomy, about the cosmos, than about say, King
so and So's birthday. Right, they're predicting solar eclipses, mapping
out these enormous cycles of time, looking centuries ahead. Sometimes
(03:40):
it paints a picture of a society just deeply fundamentally
connected to the stars and the calendar.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Okay, so this amazing focus on time, it wasn't just
happening in theory. It was grounded in a real place.
Let's go there.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Let's picture Copan. Okay, it's in western Honduras, like we said,
on the north bank of this river valley, pretty lush.
I imagine elevation, well, Popino, I thought around nineteen hundred
feet seems the most likely number.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
And the wildlife the sources mention at least seven kinds
of cats, jaguars, ocelots. Wow, and they weren't just you know,
wandering around, they were hunted. Their skins, big status symbols
worn by rulers, top nobles.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Cloaks made of jaguar skin. That sends a message.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Definitely power, prestige, connection to the wild.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Maybe, and the city center itself, the acropolis or the
main structure as Gordon called it.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, And what's interesting is it wasn't like someone drew
up a master plan on day one and they build
it now. They grew gradually. They kept adding temples, pyramids,
platforms over centuries, layer upon layer, so it evolved exactly.
It really reached its peak form around nine point one
seven point zero point zero point zero in their calendar.
That's about seven seventy one a d for us, a
(04:51):
high point.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
And it became this big complex right with different courtyards, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
The Eastern and Western courts, the court of the Hieroglyphic Stairway,
the famous one, and temples facing onto these plazas, lots
of double eleven, Double twenty two, Temple twenty six. Shows
a real focus on ritual, on public space. Absolutely, and
they weren't just building big. They had kirks right like
that shrine of the toad.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Uhhh yeah, name for a giant toad carving grotesque sculptures
around it too, definitely stands out from the more formal stuff.
And I love this detail about how they worked with
the stone, sometimes leaving natural bits inclusions they call them, right.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Like a weird novel or a vein of color in
the rock.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
And they'd either just smooth it off or on some
steel a like steal A three, they actually carved around it.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, it shows this interesting mix, doesn't it, respect for
the material, but also you know, artistic skill to adapt.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Where did they get the stone?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Quarries were about a kilometer away up in the hills,
and for the really fine carving, they likely used a
braiding tools, ribbing away with harder stone or sand pains.
Taking work must have been and these little details they
fit into this bigger picture of artistic change at Copan.
You can try their sculpture developing how so well. Even
(06:02):
the really early statues like on stale Ape or Still seven,
they're described as maybe somewhat lifeless, a bit stiff, okay,
but you can already see the potential. They clearly forecast
the sculptural brilliance that would come later, maybe one hundred
years on. The seeds were there, And another interesting thing
they reused old stuff, especially these early altars, the banded altars.
(06:25):
They'd stick them in the foundations of newer monuments.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Oh, really like recycling kind of.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
We see alter x under steal a five, alter y
under steal a four. Maybe at safe work. Maybe it
was honoring the past.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Probably a bit of both makes sense. And those early stela,
the big stone slabs, they mostly had initial series dates, right,
these really long dates counting from the beginning of time.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, foundational dates anchoring everything, and the figures carved on
them often very formal, stiff, symmetrical front view, heels together,
staring straight out.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Like posing for a very serious portrait.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Pretty much those scale of twenty three is cool. It
shows a figure and profile. So they were experimenting early on,
trying different things.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Okay, let's talk about one of the most famous bits
of Copan, that hieroglyphic stairway on Mound twenty six.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Ah, yes, monumental.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It wasn't just stairs, right, it was like a book
made of stone.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Exactly covered in glyphs. Estimates are maybe about ninety steps.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Originally ninety steps of writing, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Down the middle at intervals. These big statues of seated
figures heroic scale, probably rulers are gods?
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Wow? Were they all there?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Sadly no, only one was found still in its original
spot in situ.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Ah shame.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
What happened? Well, a huge landslide hit that area sometime
before the explorers Glindo and Stevens got there in the
eighteen thirties. Oh wow, Steve's actually drew it described a
scene of extreme desolation and ruin glyphs all tumbled, mixed up,
a real mess.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
So studying it must have been a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
A massive challenge, but incredibly rewarding. By piecing together the
glyph they could read, they found dates covering the Early,
Middle and Great periods.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
So a long history record there.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Definitely, And they think it was dedicated around nine point
one six point five point zero point zero, which is
about seven hundred and fifty six eighty rate in Copin's prime.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
But here's the bit that gets me. It wasn't just history,
was it. They found prophetic dates?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yes, this is fascinating. Yeah, they recorded the date ten
dearer point zero point zero point zero on several monuments
Ye Stella ja alter s Stella eight. But when they
carved those ten nine zero Tori oo point zero, but
it's still way off in the future, centuries ahead.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
They were carving dates for the future.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Seems like it not just recording what happened, but marking
future milestones looking ahead.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
That's a different way of thinking about time, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
These dates could hardly been other than prophetic. It underlines
that deep almost philosophical engagement with time cycles, like they
saw the future as predictable, something you can map out
and even carve in stone. Makes you wonder about their
work world view.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It really does. So Copan reaches this incredible peak artistic
brilliance complex timekeeping. But then what the story doesn't end happily?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Does it? No, it doesn't. But it's not quite the
sudden collapse people sometimes imagine for.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
The Maya Right, you hear Maya collapse and picture everything
falling apart overnight exactly.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
But the evidence suggests it was more of a gradual cessation,
a slow winding down across the whole Old Empire region,
really kicking in after ten point two point zero point
zero point zero, which is around eight hundred and seventy
eighty a fade out, not a crash.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Interesting, so things are shifting even.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Before that yeah, you see changes within Copan itself. By
around seven oh one AD. That's nine point one three
point zero point zero. The main center of the acropolis
was the main settlement Old Copan, An earlier area became
less important. Okay, but here's the paradox. The period after that,
starting around seven to sixty one a d. Nine point
one six point zero point zero point zero was the
(09:58):
Great Period. This was the absolute peak of art, architecture, culture,
maximum efflorescence.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So they were creating their most amazing stuff right when
things were maybe starting to fray around the edges.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It seems that way for a good while, Copan was
the esthetic center of the male world, peak creativity, even
as the underlying system might have been weakening.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
So why why did it decline? What are the theories?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, scholars had debated this a lot. Our sources lay
out a few main ideas. One from Spinden was about decadence.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Decadence like society got lazy, kind of.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
He argued, the art itself showed it. He got super elaborate, flamboyant, extravagant,
and he linked that artistic style to a supposed decline
in morals, politics, society itself. Art reflecting a weakening core
HM plausible.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I guess what else?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Another big one is clinatic change, pushed by Huntington. He
looked for patterns of drought.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Basically, ah, the climate change angle very relevant today, right.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
He suggested periods of less rain, longer dry seasons, making
farming tough. Maybe spreading disease did the evidence back then?
There were some connections. Yeah, the source mentions satisfactory, not
to say almost startling agreements between his climate cycles and
Maya history. But but the writer were drawing on didn't
quite buy it as the main reason. They felt unable
(11:15):
to accept this hypothesis as the principal explanation, although maybe
it played a part, a contributing factor perhaps.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Okay, so not the smoking gun. Maybe what was the
third theory? The one the source writer like best.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That was agricultural collapse proposed by Cook. The idea is
basically that they overfarmed the land. How intensive maize cultivation,
growing lots of corn combined with constantly burning the land
clear repeated burning off of the weedy growth standard practice,
but maybe unsustainable.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Long term exhausted the soil exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Leading to forests being replaced by grassy savannahs land that
just couldn't support the large population anymore. Farming became no
longer possible on the scale needed. Wow, loving the land
to death. Essentially, that's the idea. The source argues this
theory best explains the progressive abandonment. It suggests a slow
(12:07):
environmental breakdown caused by their own success in a way,
a really sobering thought about sustainability.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Definitely. So after eight hundred and seventy eight y or so,
with these pressures building, people started leaving.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, a major exodus from the Petin region, the old
empire heartland. Some moved north into Yucatan think Chichenitza. Others
went south into the highlands of Guatemala.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
So not an end to Maya civilization, but a shift,
a relocation.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Precisely a transformation.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Let's switch gears a bit. What about when the Spanish arrived,
did they encounter Copan?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
They did, though much later. Of course, there's this account
of Hernando de Chabe's fighting his way in.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Was it easy?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Not at all? He faced Copanklal, the local ruler, and
this huge army more than thirty thousand warriors.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
From the area thirty thousand.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, the town even had a moat. The Spanish got
resolutely beaten off at first, took heavy losses.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Wow, so they put up a real fight.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Definitely, Actually the Spanish went out militarily, but the source
notes the Copenhag Goes only submitted apparently in secret. They
continued to render worship to their idols. Cultural resistance.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Fascinating And how did we even start learning about Copan
in the modern era? Who are the key figures?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well, there were early mentions like fantasy Guzmann in sixteen
eighty nine, but he was just reporting hearsay about superb edifices.
He never actually saw it. Okay, The real game changer
was John Lloyd Stevens in eighteen thirty nine. He got there,
saw the scale of the art, and even though he
couldn't read the glyphic.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Right, the code wasn't crapped yet he.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Acutely gauged the importance of what he saw. He wrote
this amazing, glowing description that just captured people's imaginations in
the West. But Copan on the map, he kicked things
off big time, and that paved the way for Alfred P.
Modsley late nineteenth early twentieth century. His work was incredible.
The greatest archaeological investigation ever accomplished in the Maya field.
Up to that point, what.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Did he do?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Meticulous stuff, photograph monuments, making plaster casts, preserving a record,
essential work. Then you had institutions like the Peabody Museum
sending ex editions finding an enormous amount of new material.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Even with setbacks. I read about John G. Jowens being
buried there.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, sadly he died during field work and was buried
right in front of Stella d a reminder of the
challenges they faced. But they kept building on that knowledge base, and.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
A huge piece of that knowledge was figuring out how
their calendar lined up with ours right. The correlation crucial, and.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
That wasn't easy either. It relied heavily on later Spanish accounts,
but also on Native Maya texts written after the conquest
using the Latin alphabet.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Like the Books of Chillon Bilum exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And the Chronicle of Oxcotscab. These texts became like rosetta
stones for time. They mentioned specific Maya time period's cartoons,
these twenty year cycles, alongside known historical events.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Oh I see, so they say this event happened in
this cartoon, and we know when the event happened in
our calendar.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Precisely, we know when the Spanish first showed up fifteen eleven,
when Merito was found in fifteen forty two, when certain
key figures died like Anaposhiu in fifteen thirty six, or
arrived Bishop Torel in fifteen sixty two, Bishop Landa died
fifteen seventy nine. Linking these fixed points to the catoons
mentioned in the Maya texts allowed scholars to bridge the
(15:19):
two systems. It was painstaking work, but it anchors Maya history.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Amazing detective work, and the calendar itself wasn't static was it?
The year bearers changed right?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Another layer of complexity. The year bearers are the specific
day names that could begin the Maya year. In the
Old Empire period, the main inscriptions used days called kaban Ekis, Manik,
and eb, but later in the New Empire, associated with
places like Chichinetsa and texts like the Dresden Codex, they
used a different set as nub akbal LaMotte and ben
Huh Why they change and then by the time the
(15:50):
Spanish arrived, the system documented in sources like the Codex
trocurtesianis used another set Cock, Cohn, Maluke, and X.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Three different systems, well, three.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Different sets of year bearers within the same basic calendar structure.
The shift likely reflects cultural changes, maybe influence from other
groups like the Toltecs invading Yucatan. It just shows how
dynamic their system was. It wasn't frozen in time, It
evolved over centuries.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Wow, it just keeps getting deeper and more complex, it
really does. So Okay, we've covered a lot. What's the
big takeaway here? We've plunged into Copan, this city of
incredible timekeepers, amazing artists, with a history that ends not
in this sudden crash, but this slow fade out, likely
driven by a mix of environmental stress and maybe societal factors.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
And hopefully you listening have gained a much richer picture
of the Maya, something beyond just pyramids and mysterious disappearances.
It really shows how patient science studying these records can
unlock human history in surprising ways. It challenges our assumptions.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Okay, here's a final thought to leave you with something
to chew on. Think about the civilization so incredibly focused
on time, measuring it, courting it, projecting its centuries into
the future.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, even prophetic dates.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Right, But despite all that focus on understanding time cycles,
they couldn't ultimately foresee or prevent their own decline.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
That's a powerful point.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So what lessons are there in those calendars, in the
story of their relationship with the land in Copen's fate,
What does it tell us about civilization cycles, about our
own relationship with our environment and the future we're building
or maybe undermining right now.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Deep questions. Yeah, makes you think
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