Stutzfamily.com>Travel Pictures

1992 - 93 and 2000-2001

Copán Ruins

page 3
Vendors outside Copan

Entering the site, the first thing you're confronted with is the army of trinket sellers congregating around the outer wall. They used to ply their goods in the parking lot, but apparently that practice has been halted. Still, they usually will bargain down to better prices than sellers in the town, and even if none of their stuff is exactly museum-quality (if you don't like the color of a little concrete statue, they'll immerse it in dye for you right there), it does make for a nice little souvenir.

Stela A
Stela A
(on the plaza, with 4 and B in the background)
Facing each other on the Grand Plaza, 2 rows of stela peer across the grass. One of the things that I always try to image when I visit Copan is what the place must've been like on important days, when the whole center area would be filled with merchants, food vendors, and wide-eyed kids from the mountain village.
Stela H
Stela H
(across from A, with F in the background)
Olmec head

I know that I already have a picture of this Olmec-ish head, but I really like it. So there.

The corbeled arch is one of those symbols of Mayan architecture. This is a shot looking across the 2 structure on either side of the ballcourt.

 

 
 
Facade reconstruction (museum)

 
 
 
Facade original (tunnel)

 
Two views of the facade of the buried structure, accessed via the tunnels. The first is a picture of the reconstruction housed inside the museum, showing the vivid colors as they might have appeared. The second is a picture from inside the tunnel, showing the 'profile' of the facade (on the left) and the dug away wall of the outer structure (on the right). I must admit that I was rather disappointed in the tunnel. I had expected there to be at least some evidence of the painting left on the inner building, but if there was any paint at all, I didn't see it.
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