Las Sepulturas

Las Sepulturas is a second archaeological zone at Copán, about 2 km east of the Principal Group, connected to it by a raised causeway (sacbé) that is partially visible. While the Principal Group contains the public monuments and royal temples, Las Sepulturas preserves the residential compounds of Copán's elite class — the scribes, nobles, and specialists who served the royal court.

The excavation of Structure 9N-8, the compound of a high-status scribe family, revealed an extraordinary collection of objects and sculpted decoration, including bench portraits of seated scribes. The complex is smaller and more intimate than the main site and gets far fewer visitors. A combined ticket covers both Las Sepulturas and the Principal Group; the walk between them (or a short shared taxi ride) passes through coffee farms and the edges of the modern town.

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A story
Las Sepulturas means "the burials" in Spanish, a name given by early colonial-era visitors who found the site's many burial mounds. The excavations here in the 1970s and 1980s revealed a striking finding: Copán's elite households were remarkably consistent in their internal layout — a central patio surrounded by rooms of different status, with higher-ranking rooms elevated on larger platforms. This regularity suggests the Copán ruling class had strong shared norms about how a proper noble household should be organised.

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