William L. Fash, E. Wyllys Andrews, and T Kam Manahan
He demise of the Classic Maya tradition at the site of Copan, in western Honduras, has been the subject of a great deal of scientific and humanistic inquiry. It is doubtful if an entire book could do justice to the entirety of the data obtained in the scholarly efforts of dozens of researchers conducted over the course of the past century. The editors of the volume have chosen wisely in soliciting two papers on the subject: the present one, devoted to the center of the ancient kingdom, and the preceding chapter, which focuses on the outlying settlements in the valley. The two chapters also take different points of view with respect to the interpretation of the material record, particularly regarding the timing of events in the Copan Valley in the Terminal Classic and beyond.
Our subject is the decline of centralized political authority in the eighth century A. D., its subsequent dissolution, and the events that followed its apparently violent end ca. a. d. 822. While the Terminal Classic is traditionally defined as the period from 9.18.0.0.0 to 10.3.0.0.0 in the Long Count (a. d. 790-889, according to the GMT correlation), in the case of Copan the forces that set in motion the end of the Classic Maya order commenced slightly before that time. Here we briefly review the evidence for the decentralization of political power during the eighth century a. d. (Fash), before proceeding to a consideration of the lifeways and times of the final ruler, Yax Pasah (Andrews), and conclude with the striking new evidence for the reoccupation of the area just south of the Principal Group late in the tenth century a. d. (Manahan). This presentation is in keeping with the
Three-stage process for the “collapse” that was outlined nearly ten years ago (Fash and Sharer 1991), before some of the important new data presented here were available.
World History
