1980年被认定的世界文化遗产、玛雅中心最南端的科潘，是一个复杂的多民族文化传统的古城。 自1977年以来，我们一直是探索该遗址的调查队伍中的一支。 我们的项目，科潘马赛克项目于1985年开始，专门研究和保存洪都拉斯科潘古典时代晚期已倒塌的数千个立体雕塑。现在，这项工作得到了扩展，加入了正在进行的玛雅全集项目，这个项目已于1968年在皮博迪博物馆(碧波第博物馆)开始，将所有已知的玛雅象形文字记录在玛雅象形文字全集（Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions CMHI）中。CMHI记录的无与伦比的准确线条图和照片，已成为了碑刻研究和玛雅文本、图像解密等研究的基础材料。

我们最初的研究主要集中在科潘河谷古代聚落的记录，标在1：2000比例尺的24平方公里范围的地图上（威廉），对王权控制区和科潘河谷区的石刻碑文、图像（石碑和祭坛）和建筑装饰（象形文字宝座和建筑雕塑）记录（芭芭拉）。从那里我们开始了科潘马赛克项目，记录、调查、保育此宝贵文化遗产和传播其有关知识。

我们重要的长期项目之一是在著名的科潘象形文字台阶金字塔的工作，这是新世界（玛雅文化）时期最长的铭刻。从1986年开始，我们主持了几个大规模的考古项目，以揭开埋藏在该金字塔深处的建筑序列，以便将考古记录与64级台阶上的铭文和金字塔顶部神庙墙体上的雕刻研究结合起来。曾经倒塌、现已混乱的台阶铭文的重建整理已经花费了几十年时间。在团队学者众力合作下，2017年即将完成。整个梯道的3D扫描是一个开创性的成就，并为未来这种新技术记录方法的应用奠定了标准。科潘象形文字台阶项目是更大的科潘卫城考古项目（1988-1996）的一个组成部分，该项目试图从以前在科潘卫城进行的调查中获得信息，作为研究和保护的一部分，且在致力于保存建筑和雕塑的同时，记录王室区的朝代史和建筑史。

目前我们为玛雅雕塑研究和保护合作主持了“桑坦德项目”，该计划旨在促进科潘内外玛雅地区雕塑的保护。在此资助下，我们已进行了科潘玛雅遗产的宣传和研究工作，并建立了一个保护实验室，组织了一些研讨会，以解决保护考古遗存所面临的巨大挑战。我们还与众多纸媒纪录片和电子媒体合作，传播科潘的知识。

在我们所有的工作中，社区参与和教育计划均与考古研究相结合。科潘雕塑博物馆就是这样一个项目，是出色的国际努力的结果，有洪都拉斯的机构、科潘社区和外国研究人员共同参与努力保护这个古老的城市遗产，向公众首次展示了许多宏伟的雕塑成果。作为一种教育手段，博物馆帮助成千上万的小学生了解古代玛雅文化、提高文化意识。旨在加强对本土艺术成就的尊重，并为今后本土人民的平等和正义起促进作用。古老科潘的精美建筑，现在在科潘雕塑博物馆理应被展览，这有助于玛雅后代、其他洪都拉斯国民和外国人对玛雅艺术、宗教和历史的欣赏。雕塑博物馆的每一个参与者都希望这种新的欣赏能激励人们为后代保留和研究这种无价的遗产。

作为中美洲的一个古老城市，科潘处在利用建筑作为视觉传播手段的最前沿。自从石刻艺术和建筑第一次被广泛解释，学者们对这种高超的艺术表达的含义和目的进行了辩论。形象生动的科潘雕刻一直被认为是玛雅艺术的最高成就。它的寺庙、宫殿和行政建筑以其雕塑装饰生动活泼，以此来表现居住在玛雅世界观中的生活和超自然的力量，这是其他城市无可媲美的。

科潘建筑的图像是视觉语言的一种形式，虽然有不同的感受和体验，但却向所有人传达了类似的一般意义。不像象形文字所书写的或许只被文化人理解，雕塑上的大型标志和主题图像可以被各个社会阶层的人都能理解。作为一个大都市，图像的设计可能是为了跨越文化边界并被不同语言的人理解。科潘雕塑家的超凡想象具体表达了精神信仰，并作为一种方式将宗教和艺术传播到其他地区。在追寻神圣统治的领导者、团体和民众中，这些立体雕塑是强有力的工具。统治者的名字、标志和神圣的地名，以图符形式被刻在雕塑上，供所有人观看和阅读。

从七、八世纪开始，这些作品大部分都已经创作出来了，我们需要寻找线索，去理解它们随着时间的流逝而迷失的含义。通过考古发掘和对比分析，我们学习了更多知识，我们对雕塑信息的看法就随之发生了变化，这就是为什么我们通常有在表述时以可能性这种词汇而不是以确定事实来陈述。要了解建筑上大型雕塑形象中的复杂宗教观念，掌握泛灵论和人格化的理论是有益的。基本上，一个人所经历的一切背后都有精灵之力，此精灵之力是可以被想象和表现的。例如，水就被看作是一种有很多外在形式有生命的力量。作为山泉或湖中之水（通常表现为一种具有睡莲特征的蛇），其视觉表现形式不同于雨（Chahk雨神面具）、露珠（珠状）或蒸气（卷云形象）。玉米在其不同周期和发展阶段中，从种子（kan cross十字花）、萌芽（卷曲的植物）到玉米棒（玉米神），到干燥的秸秆，都有不同的代表图像。

科潘雕塑提供了许多生动的例子，有关超自然力量驻留在我们日常世界的观点。 Hijole建筑上的水鸟，可能曾经是22号建筑上的装饰，是石雕中技艺最娴熟的。罗萨里拉建筑当然是一个宏伟的，保存完好的例子，在博物馆重建时，得以让我们感受和思考这种性质的整个建筑对看到它的人的影响。博物馆的重建有助于我们设想，在这些充满活力和象征意义的环境中，城市核心和外围住所庭院和家庭中举行的庆典盛况和公共或私人的仪式。

下面的广场上的人们仰视建筑物，可以很容易地辨识出那些宣扬社会和谐的符号和其中蕴涵的政治信息，，例如22A号 建筑的编织图案。虽然我们只能假设谁参加了该遗址核心区（王室建筑群和市中心）的活动，但可以确定的是他们应该来自不同的社会群体，在不同历日参加中心区的特定活动。有时，实力强大的地方居民会建造自己的有生动雕刻的建筑，以彰显当地的力量并自得其乐。

科潘众多的雕刻家和建筑师无疑在这一发展中起着直接作用。随着技艺增进和人数的增加，他们似乎希望建立更醒目的住宅建筑来补充核心区建筑或与其媲美。公共建筑项目最有可能从小酋长或其他政治单位吸引劳动力，个人希望通过把自己附属于富裕的政体来提高他们的生活质量。通过石匠和雕塑家的吸引和培养，提供一支长久性的技术工作队伍，使得执政王朝的力量不断增强。通过研究政治地位、社会权力和建筑之间的联系，我们认为科潘雕塑家和石匠形成了一个特殊的精英利益集团，始于早期古典阶段政体建立之时，至晚期古典阶段，已建立了显著的经济实力。

在科潘河谷，已知有14个居住区发现外墙带雕刻的建筑，其中四个室内带雕刻的石榻，这引起了我们对建筑施工和雕塑装饰的经济影响的关注。在古典时代晚期，平民百及日常居址占85％，贵族居址占15％，只有不到1％属于王室建筑。据学者估计，30名工人大约需要一年的时间来建造像9N-82号那样的居址，50名工人需要两年在卫城建造更大的22号建筑。这表明了一个关键事实：即建筑是反映社会权力关系的重要标志。

在中央区半径1公里 “核心”城区以及西部的Ostuman，东部的Rastrojon和Petapilla以及20公里外的Rio Amarillo等更多的农村地区，住宅群在雕塑建筑中展示了各种不同的风格和信息。 他们中的大多数还没有完全被发掘或重建，但我们可以预见，他们的社会和政治地位也有很大差异，不仅体现在雕塑主题上，还有他们所在地的不同生活史。

我们最近在Rastrojon进行了为期七年的项目。三所学术院校和一支科潘技术人员队伍参与了对这些建筑物的揭露。该遗址现在对外开放，与教师进行的当地教育计划正在帮助确定遗址未来的议程，并激励年轻人参与未来的玛雅历史建构中。

理解古代科潘帝国王权崩溃背后的内部强权政治，我们还有很长的路要走，但对住宅和城市结构的持续调查，有助于我们理解参与者和政府如何在地位和权力的产生中扮演关键角色。 这似乎只是君王制度发展演变成政治混乱和神圣统治结束的必然过程中的诸多因素之一。

科潘雕塑的研究是无止境的，因为有许多方面和重要的遗存会随着时间的推移而为人所知。 例如，我们才刚开始了解雕塑颜色的含义和用法。先进技术使我们能够看到肉眼看不见的灰泥和石孔中的细微色素残留，为这个引人注目的主题打开了一个全新的世界。正使用的三维记录，为保存信息和重建坍塌的石像提供了新的手段。尽管取得了这些新的进展，我们必须继续保护原发现，因为对于以自己的视觉和新知识来体验和研究过去的手段的我们来说，没有什么比本真的艺术品更重要了。

Copan, the southernmost Maya center and a World Heritage Site since 1980, was a complex ancient city of multi-ethnic cultural traditions. Since 1977 we have been part of investigative teams exploring the ancient ruins. Our own project, the Copan Mosaics Project was begun in 1985 to specifically research and preserve the thousands of façade sculpture collapsed from the Late Classic buildings in Copan, Honduras. This work now expanded, joins the on-going Maya Corpus Program begun at the Peabody Museum in 1968, to document all the known Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions in the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions folio series. The CMHI’s unsurpassed register of precise line drawings and photographs have been instrumental for epigraphic studies and the decipherment of Maya texts and images.

Our initial research focused on the documentation of the ancient settlements in the Copan Valley in a detailed 1:2000 scale map of 24 km.2 (William), and the recording of the inscriptions and iconography of the free-standing stone sculptures (stelae and altars) and architectural adornments (hieroglyphic thrones and façade sculptures) from the royal precinct and the valley (Barbara). From there we initiated the Copan Mosaics Project to document, investigate, preserve and disseminate knowledge about this priceless cultural heritage.

One of our significant long-term project focuses on the famous Hieroglyphic Stairway of Copan, the longest hieroglyphic inscription in the New World. Starting in 1986, we directed several massive archaeological projects to uncover the sequential building phases buried deep within the pyramid, in order to pair the archaeological record together with epigraphic and iconographic studies of the 64-step inscription and façade sculpture. The reconstruction of the once-collapsed and now jumbled hieroglyphic text on the stairway has taken decades to achieve. Together with a team of scholars, now in 2017 it is nearly complete. The 3D scanning of the entire Stairway is a pioneering achievement and sets the standard for future applications of this new technological documentation method. The Copan Hieroglyphic Stairway Project became an integral part of the larger Copan Acropolis Archaeological Project (1988-1996) which sought to recover information from previous investigations in the Acropolis as part of an integral program of research and conservation, dedicated to preserving the architecture and sculpture while simultaneously documenting the dynastic and architectural history of the royal precinct.

We currently co-direct The Santander Program for the Research and Conservation of Maya Sculpture, which promotes the preservation of Maya sculpture in and beyond Copan throughout the Maya region. With this funding, we’ve carried on the publication and research on Copan’s Maya heritage, and built a conservation laboratory and organized workshops to address the immense challenges of saving the archaeological past. We have also worked with numerous print, documentary, and electronic media to disseminate knowledge of Copan.

In all our work community involvement and educational programs have been coupled with archaeological research. The Copan Sculpture Museum, one such project, was an extraordinary international endeavor that involved Honduran institutions, the Copan community, and foreign researchers working together to preserve the heritage of this ancient city and present many of its magnificent sculptural achievements to the public for the first time. As an educational tool, the museum helps thousands of schoolchildren learn about the ancient Maya and become more culturally conscious. It is intended to strengthen respect for indigenous artistic achievements and to be a catalyst for equality and justice for native people in the future. The exquisite sculptured façades of ancient Copan, now deservedly displayed in the Copan Sculpture Museum, contribute to the appreciation of Maya art, religion, and history by Maya descendants, other Honduran nationals, and foreigners alike. It is the wish of everyone involved in the sculpture museum that this renewed appreciation will inspire people to preserve and study this priceless legacy for future generations.

As an ancient city of the Mesoamerican world, Copan was at the forefront of using architecture as a means of visual communication. Since the first popular accounts of its stone art and architecture scholars have debated the meanings and purposes of such masterful artistic expression. Copan with its animated imagery was always considered to have the highest level of achievement in Maya art. Its temples, palaces and administrative buildings came alive with their sculptural decoration as a means to personify the living and supernatural forces that inhabited the Maya world view in a way few other cities could rival.

The imagery on Copan buildings was a form of visual language that although perceived and experienced differently, conveyed a similar conventional meaning to everyone. Unlike the written word in hieroglyphs that was probably only comprehended by the literate, the large symbols and motifs on the facades could be understood by people of all social ranks. As a cosmopolitan city, the imagery was probably designed to cut across cultural lines as well and be understood by people who spoke different languages. The wonderful imaginations of the Copan sculptors gave concrete expression to spiritual beliefs and served as a means to spread religion and art to other areas. In the hands of the leaders and groups seeking to sacralize divine rule and the people, the sculpture facades were powerful instruments. Rulers’ names, emblems, and sacred place names, were emblazoned in iconic form for all to see and read.

Now far removed from the 7th and 8th centuries when most of these works were created, we must look for clues to understand their ambiguous meaning lost with the passage of time. Our ideas about the sculpture’s messages change as we learn more through excavations and comparative analysis, which is why it is usually necessary to present possibilities in conditional terms rather than stated as facts. To understand the complex religious concepts in the large sculptural images decorating buildings it is useful to grasp the idea of animism and personification. Basically, that everything that one experienced had a spiritual force that could be visualized and represented. Water for example was seen as a living force that took many forms. It visual representation as a liquid from a mountain spring or lake (often a serpent with waterlily attributes) differed from its depiction as rain (Chahk mask), dew (beads) or vapor (scrolls). Maize, in its many cycles and stages of development, from seed (kan cross), to sprout (curling vegetation), to corn cob (maize deity), to drying stalk also took many guises.

The Copan sculpture offers many vivid examples of the concept that supernatural forces reside in our everyday world. The water bird from Hijole structure, which may have once adorned Structure 22 is perhaps the most masterful in carved stone, and the Rosalila structure is certainly a magnificent and well-preserved example that, when reconstructed in the museum, allows us to feel and contemplate the impact an entire building of this nature had on one who encountered it. The museum reconstructions help us envision the pageantry and public or private rituals that took place in the courtyards and households both in the city core and in outlying residences to accompany these lively and symbolically charged backdrops.

Political messages and symbols that struck a unifying chord in the community, such as the woven mat motif on Structure 22A’s edifice, would have been easily identifiable by everyone who could view the building from the plazas below. Although we can only hypothesize about who attended events in the Principal Group of Ruins (the royal compound and city center), it is likely that different social groups participated at calendrically timed events in the center. In time, powerful groups in the outlying residences created their own animated facades for local enhancement and enjoyment.

Copan’s unusually prolific sculptors and masons no doubt had a direct role in this development, and as their skill and numbers increased, so it seems did the desire to build bolder residential buildings to complement or rival those at the center. Public architectural projects most likely served to attract labor from smaller chiefdoms or other political units with individuals hoping to increase their quality of life by attaching themselves to a wealthy polity. Attracting and training masons and sculptors generated increased power for the ruling dynasty by providing a permanent skilled work force for the public projects in the Principal Group. Studying the connection between political status, social power, and architecture, we proposed that Copan sculptors and masons formed a special elite interest group beginning in the Early Classic with the founding of the polity, and by the Late Classic one that wielded significant economic power.

In the Copan Valley 14 residential groups are known to have displayed sculptural facades, four of them having interior hieroglyphic benches, which draws our attention to the economic consequences of architectural construction and their sculptural embellishments. In the Late Classic, commoners and domestics made up 85% of the households in the valley, those of elites 15% with less than 1% of the total populace representing the actual ruler’s household. Scholars estimate is it would take 30 workers approximately one year to construct the residential Structure 9N-82, and two years for 50 workers to build the larger Structure 22 on the Acropolis. The essential point remains that architecture is a valuable artifact in reflecting social power relations.

Within one kilometer radius of the urban “core” of the Principal Group, as well as in the more rural areas of the Valley, such as Ostuman in the west, Rastrojon and Petapilla in the east, and Rio Amarillo, some 20 km away, residential compounds display a wide array of different styles and messages in their façade sculptures. Most of them have not yet been completely excavated or reconstructed, yet we can predict that their social and political standing also varied significantly, based not only on the themes of their sculpture but also on the divergent life histories of the sites they occupied.

Our recent seven-year project at the site of Rastrojon, involved three academic field schools and a team of Copan technical staff in its uncovering of the buildings. The site is now open to the public and a local educational program with teachers are helping to set the agenda for the site’s future and inspire young people to participate in the future of the Maya past.

We are still a long way from understanding the internal power politics behind the collapse of royal authority in ancient Copan, but continued investigation of the residences and urban structures holds great promise for helping us to understand how actors and government played key roles in the production of status and power in Copan. It seems likely that this was but one of many factors in the inexorable process in which regal order devolved into political chaos and the end of divine rule.

The study of the Copan sculpture is endless for there are many facets and important remains that will come to light with the passage of time. For example, we are only beginning to understand the meaning and use of color on the sculpture. Advanced technology that allows us to see microscopic remains of pigment in the stucco and stone pores invisible to the naked eye, promises to open a whole new world on to this fascinating subject. Three-dimensional records are being created that offer a new means of preserving information and reconstructing fallen facades. Despite these new advances, we must continue to preserve the originals, as nothing surpasses the genuine artifact as a means to experience and study the past with our own visual senses and new knowledge.