By January, the Peabody Museum’s Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Program hopes to be in Copán, Honduras, scanning the imposing but fragile hieroglyphic stairway, the longest inscription in the New World.
The stairway, a long, broad stone step that leads up the side of the site’s main acropolis structure, tells the story of Copán’s ancient Maya ruling dynasty and is unlike anything in the Maya world. Marked with glyphs and sculpture, the stair retains an intimidating quality even today to those who stand at its foot and gaze up to where Copán’s rulers once stood. The stairway is the reason UNESCO declared Copán a World Heritage Site in 1980.
