Ancient Tulum: Mayan Gem On The Caribbean Coast Of Mexico?

Hi, this is Brian Forster, and today we're exploring Tulum in the Caribbean of Mexico. Now, it's described as being a popular tourist destination, but I would say it's overrun with tourists. Every day there are at least 10,000 people who visit this very small Mayan site, but we were there, so we had to simply put up with the congestion. So, the site may have been called Zama, meaning City of the Dawn, because it faces sunrise. Tulum stands on a bluff facing east towards the Caribbean Sea, and is also the Yucatan Mayan word for fence, wall, or trench. The walls surrounding the site allowed the Tulum fortress to be defended against invasions, and Tulum had access to both land and sea trade routes, making it an important trade hub, especially for obsidian. From numerous depictions in murals and other works around the site, Tulum appears to have been an important site for the worship of the diving or descending god, which is kind of intriguing. And next, we're going to have our guide give you a little description. We are going now where we are now. We are right here. Most people go through this door to go directly to see the ruins. If you don't mind, I would like to take you over here to see, before to see the ruins, the beauty of the Caribbean. Now, because our guide Sergio had been to Tulum probably 200 times, he was able to maneuver us away from the general crowd, and allowed us to see some places that most tourists don't see, which was really good. So, Tulum was first mentioned by Juan Diaz, a member of Juan de Grijalva's Spanish expedition of 1518, the first Europeans to spot Tulum. The first detailed description of the ruins was published by John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood in 1843, in the book Incidents of Travel in Yucatan. As they arrived from the sea, Stephens and Catherwood first saw a tall building that impressed them greatly, most likely the great castillo of the site. They made accurate maps of the site's walls, and Catherwood made sketches of the castillo and several other buildings. Stephens and Catherwood also reported an early classic stelae on the site, with an inscribed date of A.D. 564, which is now in the British Museum. And this has been interpreted as meaning that the stelae was likely built elsewhere, and brought to Tulum to be reused. So, Tulum is actually quite a very small site. No actual evidence that I saw of megalithic ancient work, like we did experience at other locations, such as Teotihuacan and Mitla, when we were exploring Mexico on tour with Hidden Inca Tours in February of 2019. But it is one of the most famous of the Mayan sites of that area, along of course with Chichen Itza, that also gets in the region of 10,000 plus visitors per day. So, if you are in the area, I would definitely go and visit. A rainy day might be best when there would be less tourists, and the problem is that it's so close to tourist resorts that lots of cruise ships and other massive hotels are relatively nearby. So, it is a place to visit, but honestly I think there are much more interesting sites in ancient Mexico that do show us evidence of much older megalithic presence. So, thank you very much for watching the video. I have a few more to upload from February 2019, and if you're interested in Lost Ancient Technology of Mexico, this is my book at Amazon.com. If you'd like to meet me in person, I will be at Contact in the Desert in Indian Wells, California, May 31st to June 3rd, 2019. And if you'd like to explore with us, we're going to be going to Turkey in September 2019, and we still have spaces available.