COP AN. 5 



COPAN. 



Principal Notices and Descriptions of the Ruins. 



Copan has been already described in the following books and letters:— 



A letter from the Licenciado Diego Garcia de Palacio to Philip II. of Spain, dated 

 Guatemala, 8th March, 1576. 



Published in Spanish with an English Translation by Squier in 'Collection of Rare 

 and Original Documents and Relations concerning the Discovery and Conquest of 

 America, chiefly from the Spanish Archives.' New York, 1850. A copy of this 

 portion of the letter is also to be seen amongst the Muhos collection of Spanish MSS. 

 in the British Museum (17,571). 



' Historia de Guatemala ; Recordacion Florida,' escrita el siglo xvii. MS. By 

 Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzman *. 



Letter dated Copan, 19th June, 1834, from Colonel Juan Galindo, to the editor of 

 the 'Literary Gazette' of London, printed in 'Literary Gazette' for 1835, pp. 456-7. 

 A similar letter printed in the ' Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society,' 

 vol. xi. pp. 545-50. 



' Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan,' by John L. Stephens. 

 John Murray, London, 1841. 



No record has been left by the Spaniards who first penetrated into this part of the 

 country of the existence of any large town or civilized population where the ruins are 

 now found, and the attempt made by Juarrosf, in his History of Guatemala, to connect 

 the site of the ruins with that of an Indian stronghold conquered by Hernando de 

 Chaves in 1530, will not bear scrutiny, although the fact that Chaves made an expe- 

 dition into this part of the country and subdued the Indians in the neighbourhood is 

 not disputed. 



We have to turn, then, for the only trustworthy information given by the Spaniards 

 about these ruins to the letter written by the Licenciado Diego Garcia de Palacio, an 

 officer of the Audiencia of Guatemala, to King Philip II. of Spain. The contents of 

 this letter have been made use of by Herrera and other historians, but they have omitted 

 to take notice of that part dealing with the ruins of Copan. The great importance of 

 this description was justly appreciated by Squier, who, in 1860, published the whole 

 letter in Spanish as well as an English translation. The following is Palacio's account 

 of the ruins : — 



"Near here, on the road to the city of San Pedro, in the first town within the 



* The first half of this History (which does not contain any notice of Copan) was published with notes by 

 Don Justo Zaragoza, 2 vols., 8vo, Madrid, 1882-3. 



t Compendio de la Historia de la Ciudad de Guatemala, por El Serior Don Domingo Juarros. Guatemala, 

 1808. 



