Tulum: The Walled Maya Port on the Caribbean Coast

Tulum is a Maya walled town on a limestone cliff above the Caribbean Sea, on the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in present-day Quintana Roo, Mexico. It flourished from about 1200 until the Spanish conquest in the early 1500s as a port in the canoe trade that linked the Maya world with Central America and central Mexico. Its temples, wall and seaside setting make it one of the most recognisable archaeological sites in the Americas.

A Late Postclassic town

Tulum belongs to the Late Postclassic period (c. 1200–1521), long after the collapse of the great Classic Maya cities in the southern lowlands. In this period political power in northern Yucatan was centred first on Chichen Itza and later on Mayapan, while the east coast filled with small towns, shrines and trading stations.

An inscribed stela found at Tulum carries a date equivalent to AD 564, but most archaeologists think it was brought from an older site. The buildings visible today date mainly from about 1200 onwards. The town’s ancient name was probably Zama, often translated as “dawn”. The name Tulum, meaning “wall” or “enclosure” in Yucatec Maya, was applied later because of its defences.

The wall and the town

A thick stone wall protects Tulum on its north, west and south sides, while the cliff and the sea guard the east. The wall is several metres thick, stands up to about 5 metres high in places, and is pierced by five narrow gateways. Small structures at its corners may have served as watchtowers or shrines.

Inside the wall stood temples, platforms and the houses of the ruling and priestly families. Most ordinary people probably lived outside the enclosure. Estimates of the town’s population at its height are uncertain, but are usually put at around 1,000–1,600 people, making Tulum a modest town rather than a city.

El Castillo

The largest building is El Castillo (“the castle”), a temple about 7.5 metres high set on the cliff edge. It was rebuilt several times, and its upper temple has serpent columns in its doorway, a feature borrowed from the architecture of Chichen Itza. From the sea it is visible from a long distance.

It has been suggested that El Castillo served as a landmark for canoes. A small break in the offshore reef lies opposite the site, and a sheltered beach below the cliff provided a landing place. The idea that lights in the temple windows guided boats through the reef is plausible but not proven.

The Temple of the Frescoes

The Temple of the Frescoes is a two-storey building whose inner walls preserve painted murals. They show deities, offerings and plants, painted in a style that combines Maya traditions with influences from central Mexico, often called the Mixteca-Puebla or “international” style of the Postclassic period. The figures include gods associated with rain and fertility.

Stucco figures of the “Descending God”, a deity shown upside down as if diving from the sky, decorate this and other buildings, including the Temple of the Descending God. His identity is debated; he has been linked with the setting sun, the planet Venus or bees and honey, an important product of the region.

Trade by sea

Tulum’s wealth came from the sea. Large dugout canoes carried goods along the coast of Yucatan to Honduras and around to the Gulf of Mexico. Finds at Tulum and nearby sites include obsidian from the Mexican highlands, jade, copper objects, and pottery from distant regions. Local products such as salt, honey, cotton cloth and cacao were also traded.

Tulum was linked with the island of Cozumel, a major pilgrimage centre for the goddess Ixchel, and probably with the inland city of Cobá through older political and trade ties. In 1502, on his fourth voyage, Christopher Columbus met a large Maya trading canoe off the coast of Honduras, a glimpse of the kind of commerce that kept Tulum alive.

Contact and decline

The first Spaniards to see the region were members of the Juan de Grijalva expedition in May 1518. The expedition chaplain, Juan Díaz, wrote that one of the towns they passed seemed as large as Seville, a description often linked to Tulum. During the Spanish conquest of Yucatan, which began in 1527, the east coast was affected less directly by fighting than by epidemic diseases, which caused heavy loss of life. Tulum was abandoned by the end of the 16th century.

The American writer John Lloyd Stephens and the English artist Frederick Catherwood visited in 1842 and published descriptions and drawings in Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843). Today the site is managed by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History and is one of the most visited archaeological sites in the country.

Timeline

• c. 1200: Main occupation and building at Tulum begins.
• c. 1200–1450: Tulum develops as a coastal town while Mayapan dominates northern Yucatan.
• 1502: Columbus meets a Maya trading canoe off the coast of Honduras.
• May 1518: The Grijalva expedition sails past the east coast of Yucatan.
• 1527: The Spanish conquest of Yucatan begins.
• Late 16th century: Tulum is abandoned.
• 1842: Stephens and Catherwood document the ruins.

Why it matters

Tulum is one of the last Maya towns built and lived in before European contact, and one of the few on the coast. It shows how the Postclassic Maya shifted their focus from inland kingdoms to maritime trade, and its murals and architecture are among the best surviving evidence of Maya life on the eve of the conquest.