Copán contains the longest known Maya hieroglyphic stairway. Its Hieroglyphic Stairway forms part of Structure 10L-26 and carries roughly 2,200 carved glyphs.
The stairway was built and expanded during the eighth century, when Copán was one of the great Maya kingdoms of southeastern Mesoamerica. Its inscription records dynastic history, including the deeds and succession of Copán’s rulers. The text was not simply decorative: it presented the city’s political past in a monumental public setting.
The stairway is about 10 meters wide, rises for approximately 21 meters, and contains 62 steps. A collapse of the temple façade scattered many glyph blocks, so scholars are still reconstructing the original order and reading of parts of the text. This explains why the stairway is famous both as architecture and as an unusually important historical document. Palenque’s Temple of the Inscriptions has the second-longest known Maya glyphic text, not the longest.