中米で最高のマヤ遺跡？🇭🇳コパン遺跡完全ツアー！

中米で最高のマヤ遺跡？🇭🇳コパン遺跡完全ツアー！

Good morning from another day here in Copan Ruinas, Honduras. I am just making my way over to the entrance way to the ruins. Decided to walk over for whatever reason. It’s a nice day. It’s just warm. But yeah, we are just walking along here. We just left the main part of town probably, I don’t know, 3 or 4 minutes ago. And there’s this nice paved walkway here to get over to it. What’s amazing is that as I’m walking through here, just randomly on the side of the road, there is a Estella. Right here, yeah, you can just sort of see it underneath the the cover there. Probably doesn’t pick up much detail, so I’ll try and zoom in and get a closer picture of that with my actual camera. So visiting Copan today will be somewhat bittersweet for me in a way. This will probably be my last Mayan adventure on my trip. As you’ll recall from previous videos, I’ve, you know, seen quite a large number of ruins through my travels, especially in Mexico, but also obviously in Guatemala and now here. It’s been fascinating to walk through the different times in Mayan history, you know, from from the classical times to the, you know Post Classico when the Spanish invasion came and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, so this will be the last stop because this was pretty much as far South as the Mayan Empire was at its largest. And so we are, yeah, it’s bittersweet. It’s it’s been amazing to learn about and to see with my own eyes for sure. So that Stella. That we just walked past just around the corner is one of two that are up here along this walk. So if you’re going to Copan, you can always take this little walkway because here’s another one. This is Stella #5. So we’re only, you know, a very short distance from the actual ruins town itself. But you can see here clearly like some of the design and stuff that’s been uncovered. And this is where it was found along with a tomb underneath it. Again, it’s so bright out and it’s so shaded underneath. It’s difficult to get much of the detail on the camera here, but just an amazing piece. It’s probably, you know, 4 meters tall, I would say. Anyway, just to give you an idea of where we’ve walked. So there’s the town, there’s sort of where the that archway is when you first come into town. So we’re just walking down here and we’re just about to hit the entrance over there. And we’re going to go check all this out. There’s a museum of sculptures. There’s a museum of sculptures in the park. Which we’ll see, but we’ll see that afterwards. And the whole valley of Copan really had a large number of stellas and buildings and temples and, you know, lots of impressive things. So there’s the town of Copan, and you can see how far out along the river it stretched. There’s a closer look at Stella #5 from 687 AD. And again, if you’ve seen some of my other videos, as I’ve mentioned in the past, these things are often identifiable specifically right to the year because with the carvings that were on them and the writing that was on them, they would often find dates to indicate when they were created or stood up in this case. Just some beautiful countryside here as we’re walking along. One of the things I like to joke about as I’ve travelled are these unnatural mounds, which are, you know, these hills that don’t quite look natural. They look artificial or man-made. And you know, I don’t know if this is another one or not, but I will continue to imagine that it is. You can see right here it’s got that nice. Flat top and even angles on the two sides. Maybe an old temple building, maybe not, but it’s fun to think about either way. Not far now. I think we’re getting near the entrance over here on the right. I believe the price to get in is around $15 US for admission and then that museum is an additional 7, so $22.00 US roughly. But it’s all right by me for the opportunity to see some of these amazing and impressive cities from 1,500 years ago. And here we are at the entrance of archaeological site of Copan, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Let’s go in and get our ticket. And get started. So just to give an update, so we came in through the main entrance here and picked up our tickets and then came through this front door and we’re just heading, well, you can see where we are here, we’re heading down this way. As I mentioned in my other video, one of the things that’s also popular with Copan is not only the ruins, but also there’s a large collection of birds that live here. The scarlet macaw, which is always one of the most famous birds of all, of course, was brought back from not near extinction, but it was certainly an endangered species. And they actually reintroduced a large number of them here in the ruins site. So one of the cool things to watch out for while you’re here, not only to look at the ruins, is to check out all the macaws and the different kinds of birds that you’re going to see here today. Which is pretty exciting, so I’m looking forward to that too. So just to confirm, the price to get in was 780 limpira if you’re paying in local currency. So as we get deeper into the city, we’re going to see more and more. One of the things you can do is actually scan the barcodes when you’re here. You can see on this little sign that’s here in front of me, there’s a barcode QR code on that, which you can scan and it will give you information. So an example here that we’re just showing this is an aqueduct that would have been here during the Copan city times. Anyway, let’s head into the main group, which is just up at the end of this road. Just looking up here in the tree. And they have these artificial like birdhouses, I guess they would be made of old barrels. And there’s definitely a macaw here somewhere, so you can hear him squawking. It’s an example here of an old, see, artificial mound. I was right. It’s just described as mound, so it was probably a smaller temple of some sort at the time. Anyway, we’re not at the main group yet, so let’s keep going in. So here’s a map of what we’re about to walk into. So again, sort of the main area here we’re walking up and then you get all these different sections. Statues Plaza, the Pelota Court, Eastern Court, Jaguar Tunnel. We’re going to head up here and then hang right. So when you come in, you can actually head this way through the woods to get into a residential group, Nunez Chinchilla over there. We’re going to head up this way to the principal group 1st and then work our way back and go from there. But already just walking in and seeing what I see in the distance, let’s just get started. So here’s some more smaller Stella’s. that you can see that are here. This place is littered with artifacts and stellas everywhere you look. And then over here we have some macaws. So let’s go look at the birds first. This is their feeding station. So I know that they talked about here in the mornings, they have two sets of feeding times here, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, butThese guys are obviously still hungry. So just before we get into the main attraction, I thought I’d give you a bit of background on Copan. So Copan is obviously a smaller city in the grand scheme of things compared to a lot of the larger sites. Places like Chichen Itza, which is obviously world renowned and very large and. Tikal much the same way. It was a very, very large, spread out site. Here Copan is actually a bit smaller, but what’s unique about this place is that the way that the structures have survived. So because of weather being better here and the type of volcanic rock that was used for a lot of the carvings, things have just been maintained better over the time. And so get those macaws as they were flying by. And so as a result, when you come here, you get some astonishing detail in a lot of the structures and stella and things that are here. Copan at its height was during the late Classic period, which was from like 600 to 900 AD or so. This would have been around the same time at the height of places like Chichen Itza and Tikal. So they were sort of later on in theYou know, history of the Mayan Empire, there was about 20,000 people living here at its peak. And I think that in the central area here, so actually in this main part of the city, there was between like 6 and 10,000 or something like that. So it’s a, you know, probably a good number of people that lived here for sure. So over the period of history for Copan, they had 17 rulers, the first of which was Yax Kuk Mo, who actually came from Patan. up near Tikal in around 425 AD. And he was sort of the first ruler of this city. And then obviously, as I said, they went through another 16 more rulers after him. Copan, you know, started off very small and then throughout the successive rulers, the temples and buildings and structures got larger and larger with time, of course. The end of Copan’s sort of fame or time as a, you know, city, came to a close around 822, according to the historical records that were found here. And it was basically left abandoned from that point forward. So, you know, we’re talking 1200 years, this place sat in the woods, completely abandoned. And what a place it is. So we’re out here in the main ceremonial square to start Where, as is almost always the case, there’s a large pyramid-shaped temple in the middle where meetings, sacrifices, ceremonies, all those sorts of things would have happened. We’re going to go over that way in a little bit. We’re going to circle this way first because there’s some really cool stuff over here that I want to have a look at. So in the middle of this big ceremonial space here, which you can see is, you know. I don’t know how big this would be in comparison to a football field, but it’s certainly several in size. Certainly bigger than a soccer pitch as well. Probably double 123. I would say you could probably fit 4 soccer pitches in this space. Here is one of the most well-preserved Stella’s. that you’ll see anywhere in the world. This is Stella A. And it’s just a mind-blowing piece. You can actually see there is a small burial site underneath it with these stairs that would have gone down to underneath. And on all four sides, You can see how well maintained the carvings are, the Mayan characters, and there’s more of them everywhere you look. So we’re just going to take a little walk this way and have a look. And as with all these ceremonial spaces or most of them, you’ll notice. There is a stone seating set all the way around the entire area. This is identified as Stella #4. It’s actually a much more prominent feature. You look at the side on view, it’s much more intricately curved. I would say it was probably reconnected right about there in the middle. And each of these stellas, most likely, were representations of different rulers here in the city. One of the cooler pieces that’s here is this giant stone turtle, or tortoise. There’s some more Mayan glyphs on the back, right next to a stella sea. Here’s an example one. This is Stella D, and it’s dated from 736 AD, specifically July 26th, 736 AD. And this is the 13th ruler here in Copan. The fact that they dated it so accurately means that somewhere on here, there is a date stamp from when it was erected. This is a Stella F and is dated October 13th, 721. The detail on this is incredible. These are absolutely without a doubt the most well preserved Stella and artifacts that I’ve seen. I think in any site out of the more than dozen that I’ve been to, yeah. Kind of remarkable. So here are three altars from the 16th ruler, which would have been the second to last dated from 800 AD, and they’re all identified as altars G1G2 and G3. So here is an example of some of the numbering that I was looking for earlier. So in there you can see the. The three dots and the three lines and then this one has the two dots with the X and the line underneath it. Those are different numbers in the Mayan numeric system. So that would be one way that they would have identified dates. And I’ve talked about this before and I don’t have an example, of course, who are with me at the moment, but the Mayan calendar was very intricate and very, very capable of, you know, dating both. into the past and into the present. So let’s head up to the main part of the Copan Ruins, which is just up here on the hill. You kind of get around to it from over here on the side. But I’m already kind of blown away by what I’ve seen here, just in terms of the quality of these structures and artifacts is, yeah, it’s pretty unbelievable. Again, you know, this place was abandoned in the 800s and sat here for 1200 years. So of course we have here one of the most instantly recognizable pieces to any Mayan city. That is the Pelota court. Just incredibly well preserved with all the seating area around to to watch. and temple buildings here up on the tops. Ah And so just here at the end of the Paluta Court, there’s of course another Stella and an altar table right here behind it as well. So this is the, in my opinion, the most impressivetemple in the entire Mayan Empire. And the reason for that, I’ll show you a close-up first and then I’ll back up and explain but you can see even here like green and red pigments and you know and if you look at all these stones you’ll notice that they all have individual carvings on them. Mayan characters. And so what this was is what is known as Temple 26. Temple 26 is what’s known as the Great Hieroglyphic Staircase. And I’m going to show you a picture of what it looked like, or at least a recreation of what it probably looked like back in the day. So this temple has 64 steps in total, plus it’s got carvings and you know characters along the way up. This told an entire story in 26 steps, each stone carved with individual Mayan hieroglyphs that told the story. And when this place was initially restored, they put all the stones back in just kind of how they fit. Only then did they discover that they were out of order and that there was in fact a story to be told. So this is currently, as you can see here, fully covered over. And that is because they are trying to reassemble the stairs in the correct order. Which must be just an unbelievable task to accomplish. This is justNext, this is the Pelota ball court here again, and this is just right next to it. But, unbelievable. Just, I know I say that a lot, but the fact that this stuff was all done by hand over, you know, decades or however long it took, and then sat here for so long. Simply remarkable. This here is actually Temple 11. And you can see it’s not obviously as restored as some of the other stuff, but um you really get a sense of the size and scope of these places. We’re going to head over this way to get up around on top. Just making my way up the stairs here, so we’re just coming up. Again, there’s the Palota Court, Temple 26, and we’re just coming across here, up around, up these stairs to the top. There’s a unique Ancient artifacts you don’t see at every temple. A leaf blower. So I’m just up here at the top of Temple 11. There’s a path you can follow to walk across the top. What a view. I want to go down here to the left because there’s something very cool over there that I want to see up close. So again, we’re just on top of Temple 11. I came across this wall which every stone is painted different colors. There’s lots of sections that are obviously you know closed off but there’s a path through here which you should definitely make sure you checkout. So this is Temple or Building 22A here in Copan and it was what’s known as the Assembly House, I guess is the best way to call it, or another name for it would have been the Council House. And this is where meetings would have been held inside. And again you can see all the multi-coloured stones on the front facing. So we’ve just come up behind the main temple there where I was looking at before and there’s that multi-coloured building here, Temple 22A and B which has collapsed. And this is the Acropolis area here at the back side of Copan and we’re just about to go down these stairs which is known as the Stairs of the Jaguar or Jaguar God and you will see why in a minute. And here is the headof the Jaguar God which is why these are called the stairs of the Jaguar God. This was actually recovered I believe initially right up by this tree based on an old photo that I saw which I’ll put on the screen. And then the rest of this is into the Acropolis and interestingly enough while I was sitting up there that hole over there in the ground everyone went down inside of it soI’m going to go do the same. It’s another statue here that’s been pieced back together like a jigsaw puzzle. Here’s a recreation of Temple 22, what it would have looked like back in its day. So again, there’s that meeting building, and then this is the collapsed temple that’s right here in front of us. So just for information purposes, when you get here to the Acropolis side, there’s actually a couple of tunnels you can go into. There’s one here. And then there’s one over here in the building. The regular ticket, nor the museum ticket, cover that. It’s an additional cost, I think, of like $10 or something. There was a sign out front for that. Unfortunately, at the front there’s no place you can pay. So once you get all the way back here and then realize this is an option, there’s no way to pay for it. So unfortunately, I cannot go down to the tunnels. So we’re going to head back this way. There’s a couple more buildings back here to wrap up our tour of Copan. There’s another multicolored temple up here on the wall being restored. It’s quieter back here too. The farther you get back it seems like that’s kind of a common thing with a lot of these places that I’ve been to is that the crowds certainly seem todie off the more you explore. So you get to the first sections and there’s people everywhere. And then as you continue on your way, it gets quieter and quieter and on it goes. So we’re just here at Temple 16, which is just sort of here in front of me, and I’ll show you a quick look of the building itself. And so what’s really fascinating about this place is that when they dug it up, they actually found a smaller temple inside the building on multiple layers. So there initially was this platform and then there was a temple built on top of it, and then over time they then covered it over with the large temple as a whole. And this altar is right here next to us and a strip of this you can see here. I’m going to zoom in a little bit so you can see it better, but this little. spot had a bunch of skulls and that actually still exists here too. So when we walk over there you’ll see the altar and that set of skulls. So here’s the altar. So this is the same altar that’s in the picture. This is the original altar that we’ve been here from about 763 AD and you can see it’s very intricately adorned all the way around with sculpture. And then up here is that layer of skulls that I showed you in the picture. And so inside of here, probably roughly where this tree is underneath here, is where that extra unique building was found underneath. And if you buy your your tunnels ticket, you might be able to see some of it. Here’s another Stella that was recovered near Temple 16. Again, repaired, but the detail work on it. And again, on these two hands that are here, you can still see some of the pigment. There’s actually a section down here below too, and I don’t even know if there’s anybody down here at all. The Southern Residential Zone. Oh no, I see a road here. I’m going to go over this way. Another example of one of these altar tables and you can see again how well preserved the carvings are on the side. Just heading down to this southern residential zone that I saw from above earlier and I still don’t think there’s anybody down here so this should be really cool. Some really cool reconstruction. I don’t know the context of it, if it’s part of a building or if they’re just reassembling the wall here, but there’s some very cool carvings and designs. Let’s head down this way. So I’ve made my way down here to the Southern Residential Zone, they called it. And yeah, I believe I’m the only one here. This feels like a open court area. And then these would have been buildings, probably residential buildings that would have surrounded this center square. This is simply identified as Residence Structure 32 and would have been built between 763 and 81080. That’s what all these buildings would have been. It’s just differentresidences. This is one of those moments where I feel like I’ve been teleported back in time or something. So I’m just making my way back out now to the front. I’m going to go check out the museum that’s up front and see what that’s like. But I mean CopanHere as as a as a place to visit is, in my opinion, unmissable. I am certainly no expert when it comes to the Maya or ruins or which ones are better than others. But all right, relax. It is certainly difficult. to imagine anything better than this place. And I’ve been to a lot of them, and this just, I think this might be my favorite in terms of the details and in terms of just like the birds and the quality of the buildings that are still here and everything else. It’sincredible. So, let’s head up front to the museum. And check that out as we wrap up our tour here of Copan in Honduras. This is where we initially came in over here to get our tickets. And over on this side is the Museum of Sculptures, which is what I’m heading to next. So we’re just over here at the Copan Sculpture Museum. A lot of these sculptures and artifacts and those types of things are going to end up. However, there is definitely some here now, along with some bats. So this building is designed sort of the Mayan historical thoughts in mind, and the bats are free. This is really cool. It’s like going into the Batman’s bat cave. Literally, because there’s bats. That’s probably a terrible joke. I’ll take that out later. So what we’re about to walk into is when I was back at Temple 16, which the one had the skulls across it and had the platform directly in front, the altar. This is a recreation of the building they found inside of Temple 16. So they called this Rosalia, was officially the name of it, and it was built around 550 AD. And so when they opened up Temple 16, this is what they found inside. And so they’ve actually done a full-size recreation of it here. We’re going to take a walk around because a lot of the original artifacts are in here and some that are even better preserved. There’s another piece from Temple 16 that was recovered, and on the big main stairway that would have gone up the building, this would have been up near the top. And what it represented was a giant monster. And you can see obviously the teeth top and bottom with a sacrificial person inside tied with ropes. Another amazingly detailed altar table. And this is one of the best maintained altar tables of the Mayan Empire in the world. This is almost as impressive as the park itself. You can see that great care has been done here to restore stuff and put it in here. Instead of putting it back out into the elements, they’ve brought it in here where they can carefully preserve it. Another piece of structure 16. So if you remember earlier when we were looking at structure 16 and we saw the row of skulls that was still there, well, this is another piece of it that would have been. farther up. Just unbelievable care and detail here. This museum is 100% worth the extra money. And this is a reconstructed piece of the killer bat. And this was found in Temple 20, or very near it. And you can see there’s been some restoration done to it, but a lot of the original elements still remain. Just another shot of that main building here in the center. Just remarkable. We’re just going to make our way up to the second floor here to see the rest. I’m just up here on the second floor, and the stuff up here is just as impressive as downstairs and what we saw earlier out at the park. In some ways better, because they’ve actually had a chance to do, you know, some controlled restoration in some cases. And you can really see stuff like this, you know, where it says this is, you know, the reconstruction of one of the buildings that would have been on top of the Palota ball field. This is a recreation of the bird that would have been on the original ball court. And it actually still exists today. It’s just a a very precarious sort of situation where it’s too fragile to move the original. But they confirmed, obviously with the paint that they found on it, that they were able to recreate it here with the same colors and everything to give you an idea of exactly what it would have looked like at the time. So this is kind of neat. So this talks on the sign here, this is from Temple 11. And As part of the doorways, you know, these would have been around the doorways entering the building. And these were a record of different events that happened, such as the positions of Venus and different things like that. Important rituals, a solar eclipse were all recorded on these types of situations so that they would have a record of when those things happened. And this is the inner doorway from Temple 22, which was the temple of meditation. And just a beautiful all these pieces put back together here. You see the skulls and the different characters and writing all the way around the doorway. Just stunning. And these corner pieces seem a couple lot too. Every one of these buildings that I saw today had some sort of decoration on their corners. So there’s actually another. Area not too far from Copan itself called Sepultura, and it was another sort of residential area that was about a few 100 meters away and had some very different things to it. Had these kind of more ornate, devilish, almost looking masks that were unique to the Sepultura area. So that’s going to do it for our tour here of Popan, the archaeological site and museum here in Popan Ruinas, Honduras. I have to say that of the 12 or 13 different sites that I’ve been to in the past year, I think this might be my favorite, just in terms of the quality of the site itself, how, you know, it wasn’t super busy, which was nice. And then this amazing museum here that contains so much stuff from the site and the restoration efforts and the care that’s being done here is truly remarkable. I know a lot of people are like, oh, I could never go to Honduras, or I would never imagine visiting somewhere like that. It’s absolutely worth it. If you’re in Guatemala, it’s only an hour away. If you’re in Belize, it’s only a couple hours away. Um Yeah, what a remarkable place. And the care that’s being done here to restore and maintain this stuff for, you know, future generations is some of the best I’ve ever seen. Anyway, that’s going to do it. Thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate you taking the time to watch my videos. The support has been overwhelming and I really, really am glad that I’m able to continue to do this to show people. kind of, you know, these places and stuff like this. Please leave a like and a comment below to let me know that you were here and if this is your first time coming across my channel please hit that subscribe button as I have, you know, well over 130 or 140 previous travel videos from the past year for you to check out. If you would like to support me further you can do that a couple of different ways. One way is through memberships here on YouTube. which start as low as $3 per month. There are also one-time donation links available below through PayPal and also through Bitcoin, if you prefer that. I also have a merch store available linked below with t-shirts, stickers, you know, coffee mugs, those types of things. I get a little cut off of those. I basically made them as cheap as I could. And yeah, just lastly, thank you so much again for all the support. It’s beenIt’s been fantastic, and it really means a lot to me. And remember, life is short. Wander. And I’ll see you in the next video.

Does Copan deserve the title of best Mayan ruins in Central America? You decide.

After visiting over a dozen ancient Mayan sites throughout Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and beyond — I finally explore the legendary Copan Ruinas in western Honduras.

This is a full walking tour of the entire site, including the Grand Plaza, the impressive stelae and altars, the iconic Hieroglyphic Staircase, and the nearby Mayan Sculpture Museum, where many of the original artifacts are housed.

🎥 Full Honduras Playlist:

CHAPTERS:

0:00 – Walking Over To The Ruins Of Copan
6:18 – Arriving At Copan
10:21 – Meeting Some Macaws
10:40 – History Of Copan
13:20 – Walking Into the Grand Plaza
14:25 – A Tour Of The Stelas
19:37 – Pelota Ball Court
20:23 – The Great Hieroglyphic Staircase
24:30 – Temple 11 From The Top
25:30 – The Popol Nah and Acropolis
28:53 – Temple 16 and Rosalia
30:49 – Southern Residential Group
34:08 – Entering the Mayan Sculpture Museum
37:00 – Temple Facades and Original Artifacts
41:59 – Final Thoughts: Is Copan the Best?

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🧔‍♂️ Who Am I:
WanderBeard is the vagabond name of Ian Daye, former IT specialist for over 25 years who’s decided to go wander the world and share his adventures here. I will be traveling initially through the Americas overland, sharing my experiences from various cultures, peoples, and history.

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