Copan is less grandiose, with exquisite sculpture, the statues of its kings radiating order and refinement. Yet excavation has shown that this city, over centuries, smothered the rich soil from which it grew. The best land was paved, the hills were stripped for farms and timber. The end was an agony of ecological and social chaos, a scramble for resources in a top-heavy, shrinking world. Diggings at Dos Pilas have exposed a final moment, the people huddling in the city centre, tearing stone from the temples to throw up barricades.
Earth is full of dead cities.
Civilizations, like individuals, are born, flourish and die. Ours, we believe, is different, the beneficiary of all the rest. The sunny afternoon in which we thrive will stretch ahead forever. In this belief, we carry on our lives against the evidence of time. Farming led to towns and cities, to specialists and priesthoods, to the rule of many by few.