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

The Copan kingdom sat on the edge of the Maya lands well away from the competitive tightly–spaced kingdoms of the Peten. Its political alliances reached both across the Maya world and over the frontier into non-Maya regions to the south and east. Both current excavations, and re-analysis of artifacts from older projects are bringing new definition to the web of relationships Copan held with its neighbors and trading partners along this frontier, demonstrating strong ties previously unknown with some communities, such as Tazumal in El Salvador, and refining interactions with others in the areas of Cucuyagua, Sensenti, and Rio Amarillo. In this session, scholars use a range of data from flakes of chert and obsidian to finely carved macaw markers, to hieroglyphic inscriptions, copador ceramics, representations of K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, differences in cuisine, and GIS modeling, to trace these relationships. Some of the papers explore not only how Copan’s intercession changed communities, but also what happened once that intercession was gone.