Modest in size, Tulum more than makes up for that! Just wait until you see its temples
rising from the highest point of land on the Yucatan Peninsula - a cliff overlooking the
azure Caribbean - and a palm-fringed beach. Tulum's original Mayan name was
"Zama," which means the City Of The Dawn. That should tell you it's a great
place to watch the sun rise over the sea.
Tulum is surrounded by a wall - and it's the only known walled city by the ocean that the
Mayans ever constructed. Tulum's temples were observed by the Spanish, as they sailed by
on an exploratory expedition led by Juan de Grijalva in 1518.
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History
Tulum means fence, trench or wall, and is the name given to the site in recent times
because of the wall surrounding it, although its ancient name was possibly Zama, a
corruption of Zamal (morning), associated with the dawn. This is an ideal name for the
site, as sunrise in Tulumis a superb sight. The first mention of this city was made by
Juan Diaz, who was on Juan de Grijalva's expedition that reached the coast of the Yucatan
peninsula in 1518. He wrote, "We followed the coast day and night; on the following
day... we sighted a city or town so large that Seville would not have appeared bigger or
better... a very tall tower was to be seen there..." which no doubt refers to Tulum
and the building known as the Castle, standing on the edge of the cliff.
In Juan de Reigosa's Las Relaciones de Yucatan, written in 1579, Zama is mentioned as a
walled site with stone buildings which included a very large one that looked like a
fortress. Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar, author of Informe Contra Idolorum Cultores del
Obispado de Yucatan, (Madrid, 1639) mentions the coast of Zama when telling the
story of ten shipwrecked Spaniards who were taken prisoner by the chieftain Kenich. Among
them was Geronimo de Aguilar, who later became Hernan Cortes' interpreter during the
Conquest of Mexico.
After this there are no other references to Tulum until Juan Pio Perez in a letter dated
1840 says that Juan Jose Galvez had visited Ascencion Bay, discovering that between there
and Cape Catoche there were two ancient cities, Tancah and Tulum, the latter surrounded by
walls. In 1842, John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood visited the site and later made
it known to the world with the book Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, where Stephen's text
is complemented by Catherwood's magnificent illustrations. During the Maya uprising of the
War for the Castes, which began in 1847 and lasted until 1901, Tulum was occupied several
times by rebels because of the protection its wall afforded. In 1871 it became one of the
sanctuaries of the "Speaking Cross" cult, led by the Indian woman Maria Uicab,
who was known as the patron saint or queen of Tulumn.
Several expeditions rcached Tulum later. In 1895, W.H. Holmes made two drawings of the
area from his yacht, and in 1913 Sylvanus G. Morley and J.L. Nussbaum paid a short visit
to the site.
The Carnegie Institution of Washington organized expeditions in 1916, 1918 and 1922 led by
Morley and including other noted researchers. In 1937, members of the Mexican Scientific
Expedition studied various sites on the east coast of the Yucatan peninsula, including
Tulum. The following year Miguel Angel Fernandez began the work of restoring and in
investigating the site. Finally, the National Institute of Anthropology and History,
through the Southeast Regional Center is continuing investigation and maintenance of this
important Maya archaeological site.
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