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Tulum Beach
Have you been craving beautiful sun and real cultural fun? Then come on down to gorgeous Tulum. Whether it's for a family vacation or a romantic getaway, Tulum beach is the ideal spot to visit. All the beaches around here are conveniently located really close to different hotel zones. There is a nudist beach, known as Nude Beach Club, which can be found in this vicinity. This particular club is around Playa Paraiso (Paradise Beach). However, not all beaches here are necessarily jam-packed with people. You can also find more empty beaches to the south, like Mar Caribe, which are less populated, if that is what your looking for. These beaches are the most stunning in their locality. This particular beach, Mar Caribe, forms part of Tulum Archeological Park. Just look at how sunny and attractive this place is! This one is undetected is a must for tourists visiting this area. It is only located about 86 miles (130 km) south of Cancun, about 38 miles south of Playa del Carmen (60km) and about 2 miles north of the town of Tulum. The site is open everyday from 8 am to 5 pm with an entrance fee of around $ 4 and there's also a $ 3 dollar charge for video or picture taking. The best part is that you do not need to worry about transportation, for there are plenty of buses around Playa del Carmen and Cancun that can take you here or you can simply drive yourself in a four lane world-class highway system.
Now, where you are currently standing is the docking area where Mayan boats used to arrive when carrying merchandize between the island of Coba and Tulum. If you look above, you will see an impressive structure overlooking the ocean; This is known as "El Castillo." This site is famous for first being seen by the Spaniards in 1518. In fact, it was first spotted by a gentleman named Juan Diaz who was a member on Juan de Grijalva's expedition. Interestingly, it was Juan Diaz who declared that this area was just as or even more beautiful than their beloved Seville, back in Spain. The Tulum ruins is what is left of a once well-fortified and prosperous Mayan town.
Today, this beach is the most visited area of the park. Tourists flock here to take wedding pictures, bathe in the sun, relax and get away from it all in a one-of-a-kind-out-of-this-world location.
Remains of the City Wall
The city of Tulum is surrounded on three sides by this wall, while the city's fourth side was protected by the sea. The city's religious and civic duties were performed within the walls, which is also where all of the city's palaces and temples were located. However, the rest of the population lived outside the barrier. There are several breaks along the walls; Unfortunately, they are currently closed to visitors. These joints were probably built to allow access to Mayans is to the fortified interior during times of danger. On two of the corners, on the side where the current tourist entrance is, there is a pair of towers currently called "El Torreon." These towers did not serve as defensive towers. Instead, an archaeologist believed they were used for religious offerings, possibly sacrificial offerings. Each temple had three entrances, and an altar along the back wall. As you can see from the images, the wall has withstood the test of time. The wall is massive; the total volume of the material equals more than 27,700 cubic yards of stone. The height varies from 10 feet to 16 feet, and has a thickness of 24 feet. The longest side of the wall is about 1,300 feet long and the other two sides about 550 feet long. The picture does not render due justice as to the massiveness and fortification of the wall is. After the arrival of the Spaniards, the city of Zama went into decline, and within 70 years the city was completely abandoned. Mayans continued to visit this city in the form of pilgrimage, and it was during this time when the city began being called Tulum, which roughly translates to wall. The pilgrimage to this site continued to modern times, that is, until it was no longer possible due to the massive amount of tourism to the site.
El Castillo
Although the direct translation into English of "El Castillo" from Spanish translates to "The Castle," this structure is not a medieval castle, it's actually a pyramid. It was nicknamed as "The Castle" by the locals, as so often tourist spots are named, because it brought to them images of castles implanted in their imagination. Nonetheless, the nickname has stayed and it is now is identified worldwide as such.
Overlooking the turquoise Caribbean Sea, The Castle lies atop a 39-foot limestone cliff. At one point this magnificent structure served as a lighthouse for incoming merchants from the Mayan island of Coba. The Castle consists of a broad stairway that leads up to a towering double-chambered temple; the two chambers were used as the principal location for religious ceremonies. The facade of the chambers is decorated with mask sculptures, and you can still see some of the remains carved on to the walls of The Castle. The doorway to the temple has columns in the shape of rattlesnakes, with the tails of the snakes supporting the roof, and their heads serving as the base of the columns on the floors of the chambers. The upper temple was built on top of another temple, which can be seen by the naked eye.
The ground level has two small temples, where offerings would have been placed to the deity of Kukulcan, the mythological feathered serpent god. Kukulcan is the Mayan word for Quetzalcoatl, or feathered serpent, and according to their beliefs, he was a man / god who rebelled against the institution of human sacrifice and preached monotheism. Furthermore, he is described as being tall, fair skinned and bearded. Pure indigenous people do not have dense facial hair as part of their genetic make up; hence the beard was an oddity for them. From this you can also deduce that he was probably not blonde or blue eyed. Otherwise the description of him would have been more vivid, such as having hair like the sun, or eyes like a gem, etc, etc.
Nonetheless, the man / god was persecuted by the warrior class and the followers of the cult to the god of war. Kukulcan was driven out of central Mesoamerica to the lands of the Mayans, where he continued to be persecuted until he departed by sea to the east, but prophesized to return on the Mayan Calendar Year of the Reef (approximately 1521 AD). Some archeologists speculate that The Castle was possibly built to foresee his grand return, where a dawn of prosperity would shower the land (or so the legend went). The myth of the feathered serpent was notably well spread in ancient Mesoamerica. There is also a striking similar pre-Hispanic myth in the lands of Oaxaca.
But why was this temple even built to this God Kukulcan? If Kukulcan and his religion were driven out by the people, why did the same people then built a temple to the very religion that they drive out? It is certainly possible that Kukulcan's influence was such that it split the population in terms of ideology, and the consequent turmoil and disunion was a factor in the decline of their civilization. It is also possible, that the Mayans believed one thing, told themselves to believe something else, and practice a different thing altogether.
On the south side of the structure there is the Temple of the Initial Series. This temple housed a stone monument, dated to 564 AD. This date has baffled archeologists, since it has been established that the city was built centuries after that. The temple also housed representations of the Mayan people and hieroglyphs. This objects are now located at the British National Museum.
Temple of the descending God
Located north of El Castillo is the Temple of the descending God. This place gets its name from a sculpture located there of an upside down winged creature holding a lintel. The name itself, is purely descriptive, and ironically has no connection with Mayan mythology. Some Archeologists believe that the carvings on the wall represent a descending god-human from heaven, but you have to see it for yourself to draw your own conclusion. Yet, others believe it is a depiction of the setting Sun descending to the night, very much like the ancient Mediterranean cults of a dying Sun. Their arguments are reinforced by the original name of this walled city, "Zama," which means dawn in Maya, and as such appears to reinvigorate the belief that the place was a center for Sun worship. In the ancient Mediterranean world, Sun worship was a very popular and spread out religion. This religion controlled of observing the Sun dawning upon the west and giving into the night, and then rising on the East, to start a whole new day. This basic observation evolved to complex spiritual myths and ritual observations, where the essence of all the myths formed in the hero dying, descending upon the underworld, and then reviving to appear on the east, creating one more day anew for humans to exist. In Egypt, it took the form of the cult of Osiris; in Greece, it took the form of the myth of Hercules and his Twelve Deeds (twelve representing the twelve zodiac constellations of the stellar night); in Phoenicia, it took the form of the cult of Baal; and in Rome, it took the form of the cult of "Sol Invictus." Human sacrifice was, also, sometimes practiced with some of these religions, and sometimes sexual acts were acted out as part of the ritual. It would be interesting to know if the Mayans had a similar cult to the Sun.
Even more, others believe that the carvings represent a bee because honey was a highly praised property for the Mayan economy. The Mayans have practiced bee-keeping for thousands of years. The stingless melliponine bee (Apidae melliponinae), native to the Yucatan peninsula, was said to be a link to the spirit world, given to them by the god Ah Muzen Cab. (If you find it strange that honey is related to a divine deity by the Mayans, you should know that it seems to have been fairly common practice among the ancient world. For instance, the Greeks believed that wine was given to them by the god Dionysus). Harvested, the bee's honey was used as a sweetener, antibiotic and as a fermented alcoholic honey drink called balche, which is similar to mead. When Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba arrived in Yucatan on the year 1517, he found bee yards with thousands of wood hives, producing enough honey to be traded all over Mesoamerica.
Finally, UFO-logists (those who pursue an interest in Unified Flying Objects) are certain that it represents an intelligent being from an extraterrestrial planet landing on a Mayan runway. Out of all the groups I have mentioned, this group seems to be the most certain about everything. There is no room for doubt. One can not leave without mentioning that the Mayans never invented the wheel, had no technology to cast iron, and did not domestic work animals. That does not implying that they could not have built intergalactic runways to support space travel, but who knows? It does seem kind of difficult.
Temple of the Frescoes
Defining itself as an instant favorite, the Temple of Frescoes stands out. Inside are the infamous frescos this place is named after. Fresco, as you may already know, is a form of art where one paints on freshly spread moist lime plaster using water-based pigments. Each one of these possesses beautiful and distinct Mayan decorations. If you look through a metal gate you'll see a fresco. This one still holds some color and looks great. Beautiful carvings cover the astounding temple. The first parts of the building were built around the year 1450, somewhat close to the end of the Postclassical Period. And just like most of the other buildings on this site, little by little the Mayans constructed more to it, updating it in along the way. The temple is a two level building. The upper level temple is decorated with red-colored hand prints. The lower level is comprized of two temples one within another, which reminds me of those Russian dolls where one is inside the other. The inner temple's façade, or front, is decorated with fresco murals. The outer temple has stucco figures and carved masks of Chac, who is the creator god. Also one of the outer temple carvings is that of the descending god (this carving is one you'll see a lot in this site). Another interesting fact about this structure is that the murals are painted in tree levels, each representing a different area in Mayan cosmology.
These being from top to bottom: the underworld (for the Deceased), Earth (for the living), and Heaven (for the creator and rain gods).
Gran Palacio
Located in the center of Tulum is what can definitively be the most important building in the site, El Gran Palacio. Its importance is even mentioned in its name since El Gran Palacio in English translates to "The Great Palace." Its importance may not be in its size, but rather in the way in which it was used. This is where the most important people in this civilization lived. At its back is an area which was more than probably used in important ceremonies. To think that sometimes royal events like weddings and such took place in this building's back area, just staggers the imagination. Time sure has taken its toll on this structure, but it does in no way take away its fine beauty. This building, too, (like many in the area) contains a carving of a descending god. Many also refer to this building as "The House of the Halach Uinic".
Every Mayan city had its ruler called the Halach Uinic. He may have also served as high priest as well, much like Caesar was the ruler and high priest of the Roman world. Just like the Romans were taught to believe that Caesar was a living god, or like in more recent times, the Japanese thought that emperor Hiroshito was a living god, the Mayans thought the Halach Uinic to be a living god as well. He ruled up his death. At his death his oldest son became the next ruler. If he did not have a son, then his brother would have taken over. If there was no brother and no son, then a ruler of council elected a member of his family to serve. Thus, it is very likely that inmates considered the family line to contain divine blood, since its persistence to maintain a ruler from the same blood family. The Halach Uinic dressed in elaborate and colorful ornaments. If you look close at temple wall paintings, he is shown with large ear decorations, many tattoos, large head-dress, and for some reason, cross eyed (maybe a consequence of in-breeding).
Many practices served the Halach Uinic. They had knowledge of Mathematics and Astronomy. In fact, the Mayans had developed the concept of the zero independently of old world mathematics. The zero was developed in India (in the old world), then passed on to the Middle East and then to Europe. It may seem an easy mathematical idea to develop, but in fact it's a very abstract and difficult concept to grasp. For there you have something, which is really nothing, but yet something that can be used for calculations. Modern man severely understands zero, for instance zero divided by zero equals anything, but how or why? It seems counter intuitive, but that's what it is. Astounding is the fact that modern man struggles with the concepts of zero, yet Mayan practices had mastered the use of zero. They also explained the mysteries of existence to the Mayan commoners. At one point they believed that earth was the back of a crocodile that floated in a large pond. They pointed to the mountains to explain that those were really the crocodile's scales. It's quite a sophisticated concept; for instance, how does a simple hair look like if we were 10 times smaller? Well, they would appear as tree trunks to us, not diminutive almost invisible hair strands. Our forests, the gigantic redwood pine trees and bottomless ponds, can appear as simple yard grass to a being much bigger than us. Thus this is the concept of relativism, which is that the appearance of things is relative to your particular perspective. The Mayans were employing it, as well, which shows that thought and imagination is not bound by time, place or technology.
El Gran Palacio is located in the center of Tulum, further imbing its importance. To be more specific it is between the Templo de los Frescoes, the platforms, building 25, building 20, and the "Recinto Interior" (inner courtyard). Since its right in the middle, you should not fail to notice it. Do not miss out!
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Source by Rosa Carvajal
