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 Travel & Outdoors | February 2008 
A Place for Legends
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| | Magnificent Mayan: A pyramid temple at Coba. | | |
Ancient Mayan lore lives on, in the crumbling ruins at Tulum and Coba in Mexico. Located on limestone bluffs overlooking the spectacular blue waters of the Caribbean sea, Tulum was once a walled city, well fortified and laid out.
Ruined cities live in the evocation of their past more than anything else. The picturesque structures and interesting stories of the Mayan ruins in Mexico invoke a time gone by. Apart from the stupendous pyramids, there are smaller sites which are examples of astute planning, foresight and ambition.
Tulum and Coba are two such sites we visited from the Yucatan. Both were extremely ancient, extending over several miles. Tulum, located on limestone bluffs overlooking the spectacular blue waters of the Caribbean sea, was once a walled city, well fortified and laid out. The name itself originates from the Mayan word meaning wall, although some call it Zama or to dawn.
Its history is tragic. Maritime and land routes converged here, making it a centre for trade as evidenced by the artefacts found on the site copper from the Mexican highlands; flint and ceramics from the Yucatan; and jade and obsidian from Guatemala.
Tulum was first discovered by the Spanish on a reconnaissance trip in 1518. They came back later bringing with them diseases which decimated the population, leaving the city ruined and abandoned.
Encircled by a monumental wall on three sides, with a fourth overlooking the sea, priests and noblemen lived within its ramparts, practising their love for ritual, mathematics and astronomy. The Mayans, by and large, were peaceful agricultural people with a precise calendar, a written hieroglyphic script and with interest in pottery and weaving.
We watched the sun go down across the turbulent waters lashing the bottom of the cliffs: we could only imagine the splendid break of day.
We entered the site through a breach in the wall. Spread out before us was the city, with ancient structures hiding the heartbreak of a former life.
Children scrambled in and out while mothers stood, a group of Japanese tourists clicked away with their digital cameras at their smiling wives against these reminders of a city that once had a past.
The Castillo, looming from a 40-ft bluff above the coast, looks like a large pyramid structure with a twin-room shrine on top. It is also referred to as the lighthouse because of its commanding position. It has vaulted rooms whose lintels are carved with the plumed serpent whose tails support the roof while their heads are positioned near the floor.
It may also have served as a beacon and it is not difficult to imagine it with huge torches on top to guide the canoes which would have anchored in the tiny cove at the foot of the cliff with its pure white sands.
Descending god
Looking down at the city from here, it looks well-planned with imposing structures, one of which has on its facade the sculpture of a winged deity who seems to dive down with a bowl of votive offering in his hands and his legs up in the air. Who was he, one wonders. Some say that he might be the God of the bees, for the Mayans were famed for their honey culled from the sting-less bees. Appropriately enough, this is called the temple of the Descending God.
Another temple called the Temple of the Initial Series has several stucco figures and the earliest date found at Tulum on a stele in the inner sanctum. There is also a temple with frescos. This temple may have been built with a view to studying the planets. Built on three levels, it symbolises the three realms of the Mayan universe: the underworld of the dead, the middle world of the living and finally, heaven, where the gods lived.
North of the Castillo is the Temple of the Winds, which legend has it was a warning system for hurricanes. Locals say that during a recent hurricane, the temple actually whistled. It looked eerie, desolate, yet powerful, as if inhabited by spirits from another world.
The city of Coba
Coba is in the interior, about 44 km northwest of Tulum, and is situated around two lagoons. A series of plaster roads called saceob radiate from the central site to various smaller sites around the location. Some of these causeways lead to the coast, and the longest covers about a 100 km.
It is said that Coba reached its zenith around 800 A.D. Many buildings, now dilapidated yet retaining vestiges of former glory, dot the site.
Of these the most impressive are the Iglesia, which was probably used for Mayan ceremonies, and the Nohoch Mul, a large temple pyramid about 42 metres high with a narrow precipitous stairway.
I climbed a few steep steps, but could see the people on top and those coming down were being buffeted by the strong winds, with some tourists even descending sitting down and moving on their behinds as there were no handrails, just a rope. I envied the children clambering up and down with no thought about the dangers.
It was hot, sweltering. I preferred to sit in the shade of a large tree and watch. A group of local tourists asked me in halting English where I was from. They knew of Indira Gandhi and Shah Rukh Khan.
The jungle was everywhere, huge gnarled trees, vines insidiously creeping over them, shrubs, plants with strange-shaped leaves.
Story of the ball court
Here, we saw the ball court with iron hoops, much like a basketball court, which had the macabre custom of spilling the blood of the losing teams captain and in some cases the entire team as tribute and sacrifice.
It was a game sacred to the Mayans and politically and ritually significant, an extension of their religion. Some say that it may have been an enactment of the Mayan myth of the Hero twins. According to the story, the twins had to battle the gods of death by playing a ballgame, and after the victory the twins rose into the sky to become the sun and the moon. The ball represents the moon and the sun, which is why it has to be kept in the air, and the court the earth. The iron hoops looked formidable, very hard to get the ball through. The players wore protectors on their hips and arms. As we drank in this information, exquisite blue butterflies flew in and out of the bushes and the ancient walls, dazzling in their flutter. |
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