Here's a quick blast of History. The Maya world ad250 - 900 covered a large part of Central America. From Southern Mexico, Belize, Guatamala to here in Honduras. The Copan Ruinas is one of the best preserved and largest Mayan sites still surviving. And it's bloody ace.
Think back to Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones flicks, or 'Mysterious Cities of Gold', it's just like that. Temples strech into the blue sky from a large flat grassy central plaza. Trees have burrowed through the side of the buildings and give the stone figureheads tails in the form of twisted roots.
The Maya people are the most interesting aspect about the place. There are about 4 million decendents of the original tribes living today in Central America. Back when Copan was a bustling town there was only 27,000. If you lived then you definately wanted to be part of the elite. 1,500 royalty, nobles, warriors and priests ran the place and got all the perks. From the freshest crocodile and chocolate, which was belived to be an afrodisiac, to their own swanky part of town overloooking the central square. The poor had to make do with shacks up on the hill. Much as they do today.
The best gig in Copan town was to be the king. Firstly you get to have a really cool name. King Smoke Monkey was my favourite. There was also a King 18 Rabbit. Not only do you get to have lots of statues built in your honour but you got to have 18 wifes to boot. Being a just king the wifes worked on a rotation system so if you got bored of one, you only had to wait twenty days to move on to the next. Apparently it was to keep in sinc with the lunar calender but I believe the bloke just didn't want to get nagged at for too long.
There's only one downside to this and that's the Mayan version of beauty. A long nose was considered very attractive as was a high forehead. More worringly women being cross eyed was a sign of virility. Then to cap it off they put pieces of Jade in their teeth. Hmm don't fancy yours much......
Think back to Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones flicks, or 'Mysterious Cities of Gold', it's just like that. Temples strech into the blue sky from a large flat grassy central plaza. Trees have burrowed through the side of the buildings and give the stone figureheads tails in the form of twisted roots.The Maya people are the most interesting aspect about the place. There are about 4 million decendents of the original tribes living today in Central America. Back when Copan was a bustling town there was only 27,000. If you lived then you definately wanted to be part of the elite. 1,500 royalty, nobles, warriors and priests ran the place and got all the perks. From the freshest crocodile and chocolate, which was belived to be an afrodisiac, to their own swanky part of town overloooking the central square. The poor had to make do with shacks up on the hill. Much as they do today.
The best gig in Copan town was to be the king. Firstly you get to have a really cool name. King Smoke Monkey was my favourite. There was also a King 18 Rabbit. Not only do you get to have lots of statues built in your honour but you got to have 18 wifes to boot. Being a just king the wifes worked on a rotation system so if you got bored of one, you only had to wait twenty days to move on to the next. Apparently it was to keep in sinc with the lunar calender but I believe the bloke just didn't want to get nagged at for too long.
There's only one downside to this and that's the Mayan version of beauty. A long nose was considered very attractive as was a high forehead. More worringly women being cross eyed was a sign of virility. Then to cap it off they put pieces of Jade in their teeth. Hmm don't fancy yours much......
2 comments:
Its all well and good telling us all this but where are the photos you muppet? p.s. only joking seems like you are having a fab time.
Lunar calendar? I suspect there may have been another 28 day calendar behind the wives thing.
I hadn't thought about Mysterious Cities of Gold for years. I used to love that, even though I was far too old for it. And here I am, nearly twenty years later, addicted to the live-action remake. Does any of the writers have a clue where they're going with "Lost"?
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