Protectors of the Maya
This is the 11th in a series of stories about Harvard’s engagement in Latin America. COPÁN, Honduras — On a steamy afternoon in late August, a blue helicopter flashed over Copán, Honduras, carrying the country’s vice president to the official opening of an archaeological site, the product of a collaborative effort to protect the area’s treasured Maya heritage. The site, Rastrojón, sits atop a hill at the eastern edge of the Copán valley and affords visitors a spectacular view. Considered both a sacred place and a strategic outpost, the area is covered with fragments of stone and the remnants of buildings that once housed Maya nobility and the elite guard who protected them. When Honduran Vice President María Antonieta Guillén de Bográn arrived at the rocky outcrop after her flight and a short ride up a bumpy, dusty path off of Copán’s main road, Harvard’s Bill and Barbara Fash, fixtures in the area...