Leaving Copan Ruinas

Time to leave. Didn't manage to see as much of the ruins as I would have liked. I did like the layout and presentation of what is there as a world heritage site. From
250AD to 900AD the city dominated the region, in effect it was the Mayan ‘Capital’.

It is more significant now because of the hieroglyphics and sculpture rather than the scale of the structures, so perhaps they were just plain lazy as builders and didn’t like lifting heavy objects up that high. Stylish and nicknamed the Paris of the Mayan world as a result Copan is meant to be a real sight. The area has been inhabited for about three millennia according to archaeologists who established the names of former kings to have been 'Waterlily Jaguar' and 'Smoke Imix' who sound more like DJs than anything else. I don’t know how they came up with their names in the Mayan kingdom but they sound a bit daft to me. The 13th king was called ‘18 Rabbit’ and his successor was called ‘Smoke Monkey’ which strikes me as a little odd – 18 Rabbit is bad enough but Smoke Monkey is possibly worse. Maybe the Mayans did spend too much time on the pottery, sculpture and art and not enough on building tall buildings and thinking up decent names for their kings. Who am I to rock the boat? Apparently Smoke Monkey didn’t make a big impression on the kingdom archaeologically, so perhaps he made all his subjects eat smoked monkey during his reign (738 – 749AD). His son apparently commissioned buildings which are the most impressive, his name was Smoke Shell, which makes smoked monkey seem quite appetising.

I wonder what Pete and Dud would do if they could see Copan now? The last two rulers were called Yax Pac (Sunrise or First Dawn, 763 – 820AD) and the final U Cit Tok whose power came to an end following defeat in battle in 822AD. I wonder if there was a loss of faith of the Mayan’s who supported their king after First Dawn started what may have been little more than a programme of gentrification aimed at beautifying a city when there could have been more substantial improvements which may have supported the quality of life in the area for his subjects. I guess there may have been an element of ‘let them eat cake’ but really I don’t have enough evidence to go on at this point. The guidebook, Lonely Planet: Central America on a Shoestring, indicates that the city broke its ecological limits in terms of its ability to support a population within the valley area. Deforestation on hillsides around fertile farmland led to flooding and large scale erosion. Presumably the last king had some form of impediment.

There is also reference to disease taking hold of the populations which is indication of the fact that the cities had grown to a size where they were large enough to propagate disease – a disease like measles apparently requires a population of over 100 000 within a city or dwelling, otherwise there will not be enough contact between people for the disease to become contagious. This gives rise to some diseases being known as the diseases of industrialisation, or more correctly perhaps, the diseases of urbanisation. What I think is interesting about this is that as I stated earlier in the blog is that there only seems to be reference to the diseases that were caught by the Mayans when Europeans first made their impact in the region in the sixteenth century. Personally, I think there are grounds to question what has been undertaken. Were they spread strategically?

Just had a little bit more de ja vu, and I really wish I knew what was going on. I think this is something to do with the memory inhibitor issue but I really can’t say. I assume that there could easily have been some influence but I can’t say what I think has genuinely gone on over the last few years that could facilitate this de ja vu feeling which makes me feel as if I’ve dreamt about such things.