The Copan Kingdom and its Political Interactions along the Southeastern Maya Frontier

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristin Landau.

Recent work in the San Lucas neighborhood outside of Copán’s urban core discovered significant human occupation in the Late Preclassic period—centuries before the first king came to power. Construction materials, ceramic styles, obsidian tools, human remains, and radiocarbon dates from three households attest to the early and continuous settlement of this area in the foothills south of the Copán River. This paper reviews the evidence for San Lucas’s Preclassic population, and its significance...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shanti Morell-Hart.

Investigations at sites across Northwestern Honduras-- inside and outside of the Maya area—have uncovered diverse food practices and ingredients. As with other more durable goods, there is evidence of transformation over time, and the movement of elements across the landscape. Some foodways were never adopted in regions where they came to be readily available (considering the general flow of species and materials) while others were quickly adopted but in novel ways. Evidence points toward...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edy Barrios. Antolin Velasquez Lopez. Cameron McNeil. Walter Burgos.

A recent mapping and excavation project in the Copan Valley is taking a second view of communities outside of the Copan Pocket. The goal of this project is two-fold, one, to understand the environmental context of these sites, and two, to understand the relationship between them and the powerful leaders of the Copan Acropolis. It is unlikely that the kingdom of Copan could have reached its apogee without the support and subordination of its closest neighbors, a diversity of towns, villages and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeb Card. Marc Zender.

Re-analysis of an inscribed flask excavated by Stanley Boggs in 1952 from a burial in the main pyramid at Tazumal is the first Classic Maya written text found in a primary deposition context in El Salvador. It is also the first historical evidence for political interaction between Copan and El Salvador, a situation that has long been suggested based on archaeological evidence including the use of Copador ceramics in both Honduras and El Salvador and the presence of other elite Classic Maya goods...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erlend Johnson.

The ability of Maya Ajaws to project political power outside of their capitals is a widely debated topic: some investigators sustain centralized territorial models for Maya political organization, and others defend segmentary models. The location of Copan on the southern fringe of the Maya world gives a unique opportunity to study this phenomenon because political boundaries in this multicultural environment are more visible than in other Maya kingdoms. We will explore the tempo and degree of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Fash. Barbara Fash.

Delimiting the “core” area of the Late Classic Copan kingdom may be enhanced through analysis of its shared mythology, associated with the ballgame. Placed at the geographic and social center of the royal compound, the main ballcourt of Copan established a narrative of mythological macaws, and a Macaw Mountain, that spanned the entire dynasty from the 5th-9th century CE. The geographic distribution of archaeological sites with stone macaw head ballcourt markers, all of which had Copador pottery...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Britt Lonneville. Cornelis Stal. Edy Barrios. Antolin Velasquez Lopez. Philippe De Maeyer.

The position of an archaeological site in a transport network is a critical parameter for its prosperity. Large collections of alien relics were excavated on various sites of the Copán region, indicating the importance of inter-site relations and trading. The importance of a particular site accordingly influenced the political, social and religious life of its surrounding sites. In order to evaluate the theoretical rate of prosperity in comparison with other sites in a region, a reconstruction...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cameron McNeil. Edy Barrios. Alexandre Tokovinine. Walter Burgos.

Situated along the frontier between Maya and non-Maya lands, Rio Amarillo reflects mixed allegiances in its architecture and artifacts, although its Late Classic ceremonial core is most strongly associated with Copan. While politically autonomous during the Early Classic, an inscription on an altar at the site demonstrates that this pre-Columbian town came under Copan’s power during the time of Ruler 12. The construction of an elaborately sculpted building during the reign of Ruler 16 suggests...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan Meissner. David McCormick. Marc Marino.

This study presents new data from the site of Río Amarillo, Honduras focusing on the social aspects of craft production in the political sphere of Copán, Honduras (A.D. 400 – 900). Between 2011 and 2014, excavations led by the Proyecto Arqueológico Río Amarillo Copán (PARAC) have recovered large quantities of microcrystalline silicate artifacts, including nodules, debitage, and finished tools. Such data are important as they shed light onto the procurement strategies, methods of local...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Hruby.

The architecturally diminutive, but economically robust, Classic Maya polity of Copan must have had an integral role in the production and exchange of Ixtepeque goods; perhaps even control of portions of the source itself. Indeed, after the collapse of the Copan state, Ixtepeque becomes one of the most heavily traded obsidians in the Maya world. This proverbial opening of the floodgates suggests that Copan used Ixtepeque materials primarily for local and regional exchanges, increasing its value...