the tallest mounds outside of the acropolis surround a central courtyard. the largest mounds date to the time following the death of 18 rabbit. surrounding the large mounds are smaller ones. they are almost unnoticeable. digging into the small mounds, the team discovers low stone foundations once covered with pole and thatched houses. david webster. webster: there's a lot of this cobbled masonry with stuff taken right out of the river. the rooms are small. there's a whole string of these that go around the entire group here. apparently there was a concentric circle of them around the entire elite compound. these things have sleeping benches just like domestic residences usually do at copan. they have plenty of occupational debris, all sorts of trash -- broken pots, obsidian, grinding stones. there are burials associated with these buildings. in other words, these look just like domestic habitations. keach: they were houses, and if copan were still a chiefdom, no one could have lived in houses much bigger than these, not even the chiefs. there would have bee

the acropolis, but it's great bleachers. this is like a greek amphitheater or like the houston astrodome. and if you can think of them not as it is now with grass and trees but with plaster all over the stairs, painted red and full of people, the sounds of musicians and the sounds of crowds and roars the play goes back and forth across the field -- sometimes the king participating as a player, if he was particularly young and nimble, and sometimes observing from afar as his team and opponents played out the game. keach: for the ancient maya, the ball court was not just a place to spend a pleasant afternoon. it was also an arena for a deadly form of theater. captives from neighboring cities were sometimes forced to play. they of course were pre-ordained to lose and were then killed in a sacrificial ceremony. the ancient maya viewed the ball game as a metaphor for the struggle of good against evil, in which the king is hero. it was the king who personally captured the victim-players. so the ball court provided another opportun

over the years, the grand temples and palaces of the acropolis have been reconstructed.but for all this impressive research, one essential question long remained unanswered. who were the common men and women who lived here ? when and how did they disappear ? this looks great. now, this area is so intensively used... to find out, bill sanders and dave webster, archaeologists from penn state university, began a project in 1980 that would span a decade of work. sanders: before we srted the copan project, we knew a great deal about copan. and its history was very similar to that of many classic maya sites. there was a long period of population growth, of political evolution, peaking around 800 a.d., and then the dynastic sequence ends shortly afterwards. and within a short period, the valley seems to have been abandoned. what we didn't know was anything about the factors and the mechanisms and the processes that produced this peculiar population history. and what we decided to do was a series of excavations and surveys which would allow us to find out how big the population

the acropolis in athens greece was dark the lights in sydney's harbor get switched all the world isn't helpful until it's what's happening is that many countries across the globe are participating in earth hour initiative that was started by the world wide fund for nature back in the stream in two thousand and seven to promote various environmental issues and has now spread to some thirty countries that officially mark the event's government's building schools and regular citizens across the world have been participating by turning their lights off saturday evening from the three pm until nine thirty pm local time. the act is seen as a commitment to preserving the planet for future generations to come the youth from each hold twenty three thousand strong in the chest as the minority angel told him lets you can see the reference to borrow for the two hundred delegates from me and taught the assembly and the community has been the ultimate it's got to be seeking self rule. we're talking about the rights of the onion tart people to self determination. possibly all the leaks in national an

walls in the ancient city, one of them the arch of the temple of venus, and the other a wall from an acropolis. italian officials are talking about how to save the site. scotland's proindependent first minister in london making his case for scottish independence, voter goss to polls in december to decide whether their country should be independent. those for us believe an independent scotland would benefit the entire united kingdom, and british prime minister has previously urged cots to vote against independence. protests continue as the nation prepares to honor it's late leader people marched with banners for the former president. it marks one year since his death from cancer. the president is making lavish plans to honor him, he narrowly won the presidency after chavez dies. protestors say the economy has just gotten worse since he took over. coming up on al jazeera america, a photo project that's gone viral, black students at one of the country's top ranked schools saying i too am harvard. and the first major television aid debuts for medical marijuana. i have to tell you for the first tim

it's one thing to keep the acropolis has a ruin but nobody lives there so these were very difficult questionshat they were grappling with and they were doing it at a time when the understanding of what preservation meant was in its embryonic phase. at that time preservatpreservat ion meant keep the outside of the building and you are good. today, if you are familiar with their landmark in process here in new york you know that some buildings are only landmarked on the outside and some have interior landmark being in some buildings have maybe only the lobby is landmarked. say like the osborne apartments up on 57th street. that amazing mosaic lobby as part of the landmark. if you are fortunate enough to have an apartment there landmarks aren't going to tell you can replace your kitchen sink. where does restoration and then renovation began? these are difficult questions and remember these guys were russian. truman was looking across the street ambler house and he was cranky. i remember sister mcshane john mcshane's daughter who became aimed nun told me, she said truman was very difficult man. t