Copán is a ruined Maya royal city in western Honduras, and its sculptors had something other Maya cities did not: soft green volcanic tuff. Most Maya carved hard limestone, which forces relief to stay shallow. This stone let them cut in behind limbs and headdresses and work almost in the round. On Stela F the king they call 18 Rabbit stands wrapped in a headdress carved so deep that arms, jaws and feathers break free of the slab behind them. The relief is undercut, so as you circle it the figure appears to turn. That softness has a bill attached. The same stone is eroding in the open air, so several of the kings standing in the Great Plaza today are copies, with the originals moved indoors.
Altar Q is one low block with four seated kings on each of its four sides, sixteen in all. They run in order from K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo', who founded the dynasty, to Yax Pasaj Chan Yopaat, the sixteenth, who had the altar carved in 776. At one corner the founder hands the last king a staff across three and a half centuries, which is the point: his authority came straight from the first. The Hieroglyphic Stairway carries some 2,200 glyphs, the longest Maya inscription known, with five stone kings seated at intervals up the middle of the flight. Most of it no longer reads. The blocks were put back largely out of order, so only the lowest steps still sit as the Maya left them, and that is where you can pick a ruler's face or a date out of a single carved stone. The ballcourt you cross nearby was set with mosaic macaw heads, and the founder carried the bird in his own name; a release programme has since put wild scarlet macaws back over the same stones. One building escaped all of it. Rather than knock down the temple called Rosalila, the Maya wrapped it whole in plaster and raised the next pyramid over the top, and tunnels now take you to its facade underground, still holding its red and green paint.