Pathway to the Past

Mayan staircase project preserves ancient history

By Eileen K. McCluskey

Special to the Gazette

Deep in Central America is a stairway covered with hieroglyphic writing that once rose 90 feet in its ascent to a major Mayan temple. This structure, located in Copán, Honduras, is considered to be the longest Mayan text in the New World.

Speaking to today's archaeologists and epigraphers through the cryptic and beautiful language of hieroglyphics, the staircase has proven to be a virtual encyclopedia of the history as well as the writing system of the ancient Mayans.

A portion of this stairway, which includes a large statue of a seated warrior, has been residing at the Peabody Museum since 1895 when it was brought from Copán during a collaborative expedition between the Peabody Museum and the Honduran government. The figure and associated glyphs are on display at the Peabody.

Rubie Watson, the Peabody's Howells Director and an avid supporter of the Copán Hieroglyphic Stairway Project -- a cooperative effort among the Peabody Museum, the Honduran government, and the Getty Conservation Institute to document, conserve, and ultimately replicate the "Hieroglyphic Stairway" -- says the stairway "contains a wealth of information and has been very important in deciphering the Mayan writing system."

Racing Against Time

Unfortunately, even before it was uncovered, the stairway and temple had long been subject to the vagaries of earthquakes, torrential downpours, and a burgeoning illegal market in antiquities.

"By the time the stairs' remains were first excavated in the 1890s," says Barbara Fash, a Peabody Museum research associate who directs the Copán Hieroglyphic Stairway Project, "only two sections of the text remained in order."

Efforts at restoration made in the 1930s and '40s by the Carnegie Institution of Washington did not solve the problem of the stairway's alarmingly rapid erosion. Peabody Museum archaeologists and epigraphers have thus been racing against time in their efforts to record and conserve as much of the stairway as possible.

Since 1986, David Stuart, the associate director of the Peabody Museum's Maya Corpus Program and a world-renowned translator of Mayan hieroglyphics, has worked on the decipherment and re-ordering of inscriptions from both the stairs and the temple.

The Maya Corpus Program is an ongoing effort to document, through drawings and photographs, as much of the Maya's hieroglyphics as possible from all over their once-vital world, which includes Mexico and Central America.

Stuart's decipherment of the stairway has demonstrated that this beautifully intricate work comprises an encyclopedic treatment of the history of Copán, including the accession dates of its first fifteen kings and citations of their dates of birth, death, important anniversaries, and monument dedications.

Efforts to conserve and replicate the stairway have been bolstered by its designation as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) in 1984.

Collaborating to Replicate

"But the most important new development is that the Getty Conservation Institute has just engaged with us in a long-term program of study and conservation," notes Bill Fash, Charles P. Bowditch Professor of Central American and Mexican Archaeology and Ethnology in Harvard's Anthropology Department. Fash has directed the Copán archaeological dig since 1985. Bill and Barbara Fash have been working together in Copán for 21 years.

"Our work with Getty," says Barbara Fash, "will begin with two years of monitoring and analysis. During this time, we'll study elements such as ground moisture and temperature. After this monitoring phase is complete, we will together determine what our conservation plan will be."

Many in the archaeological community want a "safe copy" of the stairway for future generations -- that is, a replica of the stairway that cannot be destroyed by virtue of its exposure to the elements. So the Peabody team, in collaboration with the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, have set their sights on an ambitious replication project. The first task would be to produce an exact copy of that portion of the Hieroglyphic Stairway housed at the Peabody Museum. If all goes well, the rest of the stairway would one day be duplicated in its entirety.

"After several years of research into reproduction techniques, we have settled on a new, non-invasive method to recommend for the replication of these sculptures," Barbara Fash says. "The process uses 3-D computer technology that originated with industrial engineers for car and airplane manufacture and design."

Fash and her colleagues have chosen a team of technicians from Canada's National Research Council (NRC) for the replication process. The NRC team has been developing the laser technology for conservation purposes, and so are uniquely poised to participate in this sensitive effort.

The procedure begins with a laser scanner passing over the object to be copied, sending a point-by-point description of the surface to the computer. The data is converted into a numerical model that produces a 3-D image on-screen. Technicians then manipulate the image into a multilayered version that reproduces every detail of the piece. This image is sent to a manufacturing facility that produces, from the data, both hollow molds and solid 3-D models of the piece.

"One of the exciting aspects of this technique is that you can conceivably make exact replicas at any scale," says Barbara Fash. "So there's a fundraising aspect to this project, too, both here and in Copán: small-scale replica monuments could be sold to interested parties."

Another major benefit of a laser scanning project on-site in Copán is that the scanning process, because it produces extremely high-resolution images, would greatly aid in monitoring the stairway's deterioration.

"Getty is as excited about the monitoring possibilities as they are about the replication aspects of the project," notes Barbara Fash.

Meanwhile, the Peabody team feels optimistic that they will soon be able to make good on a long-standing promise to return a replica of the Peabody-housed portion of the stairway to Copán.

"Returning a cast of the Peabody sculptures to Honduras will bolster our long-standing relationship with that country," Barbara Fash says. "We're excited at the prospect of the laser technology, and look forward to beginning the replication project here this fall."