Maya Ruins of Tikal and Copán

Destination: Guatemala and Honduras

Travel guidebook summary

Use our unrivaled guidebooks to explore the ancient Maya ruins of Guatemala and Honduras and discover the most impressive art and architecture in the New World. Featured sites include Tikal, Copán, and Quiriguá.

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★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Excellent guidebook
We used this guide in Copan and Tikal. The book allows for an interesting tour of the sites. The colored photos make it easy to locate the highlights. In addition there is enough background material to provide a good understanding of Mayan culture.

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Message from the author

“The Maya civilization is fascinating to me because its artistic forms demand close, prolonged inspection … looking at an image is like solving a puzzle. With this in mind, we focused on symbolism and on making the complex imagery more easily identifiable in the guidebook’s photos.”

Tikal & Copan: About this Guidebook

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Guidebook details

The Maya religious centers of Tikal and Copán are one of Mesoamerica’s cultural treasures, the remains of a great civilization that prospered for 2,000 years (peaking from 600-800 CE) and created some of the most impressive art and architecture in the New World. Still infused with their historical magic, they are yours to discover.

What’s in this guidebook

  • Background. We start off by providing some critical background information — focusing on cosmology and the role of the dynastic ruler — that makes sense of the forms and symbols of the unique Maya aesthetic.
  • Tours of Tikal and Copán. Following our tradition of being the most valuable resource for culture-focused travelers, we then turn our attention to two of the most spectacular Maya cities: Guatemala’s Tikal and Honduras’ Copán. For each city, we start by introducing the distinctive features of its art and architecture, isolating key features and concepts that you will see again and again as you make your way through the site. The tours walk you through the highlights, aided by high-resolution images and a discussion that ties it all together.
  • Bonus site: Quiriguá. As a special bonus, we also profile the smaller Maya site of Quiriguá, an ideal addition to your existing Tikal and/or Copán itinerary.
  • Advice for getting the best cultural experience. To help you plan your visit, this guidebook supplies logistical advice, detailed maps and links to online resources. Plus, we give our personal tips for getting the most from your experience while on location.
  • Information the way you like it. As with all of our guides, this book is optimized for intuitive, quick navigation; information is organized into bullet points to make absorption easy; and images are marked up with text that explains important features.

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