The fertile Copán River valley in the extreme western Honduras near to the border with Guatemala border, is the site of a major Maya kingdom anciently named Xukpi ("Corner-Bundle") that was established around the 2nd century AD. By the 5th century Copán had grown into one of the most important Maya sites, and flourished until the early 9th century.

Copán ranks among the most important of Maya sites for many reasons, but foremost among these is its vast number of hieroglyphic texts. For its relative small size (many other sites in the Maya lowlands are physically larger), the amount of inscribed materials at Copán are truly astounding, suggesting that in some way the elite culture of this ancient kingdom was particularly interested in literate culture and whatever that entailed.

The texts are found on numerous altars, architectural stones and portrait stelae mostly placed along processional ways in the central plaza of the city and the adjoining complex of overlapping step-pyramids, plazas, and palaces. Copán's inscriptions have played a significant role in the decipherment of Maya glyphs and have not only revealed surprising facts about the local royal history, featuring the rituals and reigns of individual kings over a four-hundred year period, but it has also opened several doors on Maya culture as a whole.

At its height in the late classic period Copán seems to have had an unusually prosperous and powerful class of subsidiary nobles, some of whom had homes of cut stone built for themselves (in most sites a privilege reserved for the rulers and high priests) which carry carved hieroglyphic texts. The site also has a large court for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame.

Although Copán suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the contemporary ruler of Quiriguá, Butz Tiliw (or K’ak’ Tiliw Chan Yo'at, "Cauac Sky"), on May 3, 738, when Copán’s Ruler 13 Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil (“18 Rabbit”) was killed, it recovered somewhat under the rule of the 15th ruler K'ac Yipyaj Chan K'awiil ("Smoke Shell") until its final slow demise following the death of the 16th ruler Yax-Pasaj Chan Yoaat (Yax Pasah), in 810. Thereafter Copán's written history died along with its large-scale construction activities and monument building and the royal ceremonial centre was abandoned.