As one of the greatest treasures of art and architecture in the Americas, Copán is known for its beautiful temples, altars and stelae. The stelae are three to five meters tall and two to three meters around. Carved in extremely intricate high relief, they are portraits of the greatest rulers in the history of the city. Many are round on one side (the figure side) and flat on the other. The flat sides are laden with hieroglyphs which describe the power and politics of the dignitary depicted and the ideology of the times. Impressive in detail and humbling in size, these unique sculptural monuments make Copán shine among the ruin sites of the Maya and are invaluable to our understanding of this lost civilization.