Scribes, Warriors, and Kings: The City of Copan and the Ancient Maya, Revised Edition

by William L. Fash, Barbara W. Fash (Illustrator)

Copan in modern Honduras was one of the great cities of the Classic Maya. Abandoned to the rain forest for nearly a thousand years, it was rediscovered in the early 1800s. Now, two centuries later, an international team of scholars is solving the puzzle of Copan and the ancient Maya. William Fash, himself one of the key contributors to the recent breakthroughs, describes how decipherment of the Maya inscriptions together with tomb finds have unlocked the secrets of Copan's history. For this revised edition, Professor Fash shows how recent discoveries in the Acropolis, urban wards, and rural redoubts of the Copan kingdom reveal fascinating insights into the life and times of royalty, nobles, and commoners in this distinguished Maya city. The uncovering of the extraordinary tomb of the dynasty's founder provides illuminating information on his origins and accomplishments, while archaeological and hieroglyphic studies have demonstrated the importance of Tikal and the great metropolis of Teotihuacan in the founding and long-term legitimization of the Copan royal line. New excavations in the royal residential area give a blueprint for the layout and functioning of Maya palaces, as well as dramatic evidence for the violent and sudden end to dynastic rule. 11 color and 109 b/w illustrations.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1991

About the author

William L. Fash, Jr., is Bowditch Professor of Central American and Mexican Archaeology and Ethnology and William and Muriel Seabury Howells Director of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University.

Reviews

[Jim]

William L. Fash's Scribes, Warriors and Kings: The City of Copan and the Ancient Maya is a detailed and even-handed study of the archeology of the Maya site of Copan in Honduras, from Pre-Classic times to the Classical Maya Collapse of the 9th century AD. Throughout, he looks not only at the dynastic rulers, but also at what remains of the residential structures along the edges of the site.

Then, as the last dynastic ruler, Yax Pac, fades into obscurity, Fash discusses factors indicating that Copan had grown too large and could no longer support a population of some 20,000-odd Maya. He compares what happened to the Maya at this juncture with a similar collapse that took place in Southeast Asia.

We tend to concentrate on the Classic Period of the Maya because of the detailed written calendrical record of events. After Yax Pac, there was no need for commemorative monuments extolling a ruling dynasty: Perhaps the elite had grown too large and unwieldy and was replaced, instead, by traders. This also implies changes to the religion of the people, whose observances perhaps were no longer quite so public. The religion persisted, as shown by Maya documents created during the early part of the Spanish occupation.

The illustrations in this book were excellent and supported the text in the best way possible.

[Dan G]

Should be read by anyone contemplating a trip to the ruins of Copan, Honduras.