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This 4 page paper discusses the ancient Maya city of Copán, which is noted for its hieroglyphs rather than its architecture. The structures that are there, such as Temple 22, seem to serve dual functions. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
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4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVcopan.rtf
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ancient Honduran city of Cop?n. Discussion Cop?n, unlike many Maya, Aztec and Inca sites, is not noted for its temples and pyramids, but for a huge number of hieroglyphs (Stuart).
This site is small in comparison to others, which makes the large number of inscriptions "truly astounding, suggesting that in some way the elite culture of this ancient kingdom was
particularly interested in literate culture and whatever that entailed" (Stuart). Since this is the case, it is not surprising that Cop?n "has long been a focus of intensive epigraphic investigation"
(Stuart). However, the work done at this site seems to center on the task of translating the hieroglyphics, and doesnt speak to the architecture found there; that is to say,
the buildings are rarely mentioned and seem to be of little importance. Archaeologists working at Cop?n are interested in the writing, not the building. Stuart argues that "Cop?ns inscriptions are
idiosyncratic in some ways, reflecting the unique features of the local literary culture in ancient times" (Stuart). The finds at Cop?n are different from those at Yaxchilan, indicating that there
might be two different types of "genres" or texts, each unique to their site. The two sites are similar in that they both "witnessed great political growth during the early
years of the Late Classic period under the reigns of long-lived rulers" and they both approximately the same methods to display their texts (Stuart). The people of these two cities
put inscriptions on their architecture, and the both used stelae, but the contents of these two types of writing are dramatically different (Stuart). At Yaxchilan, the major themes found on
the monuments are "war, dance, and bloodletting rituals, with several records of architectural dedicatory rites" (Stuart). In addition, when there are records of dances and wars displayed, they are accompanied
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