Tulum (Spanish pronunciation: [tuˈlun]; Yucatec Maya: Tulu'um) is the location of a pre-Columbian Mayan walled city that was an important port for Coba in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The ruins are located on 12-meter-tall (39 ft) cliffs along the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula on the Caribbean Sea. Tulum was one of the last cities built and lived in by the Maya. It was most important between the 13th and 15th centuries. The Maya continued to live in Tulum for about 70 years after the Spanish began exploring Mexico, but the city was left by the end of the 16th century. Tulum is one of the best-preserved coastal Maya sites and is now a popular place for tourists.

History and description

• Map of central Tulum
• Tulum Ruins
• Main temple at Tulum, lithograph in 1844 by Frederick Catherwood
• View to the top of El Castillo

The site might have been called Zama, meaning "City of Dawn," because it faces the sunrise. Tulum stands on a bluff facing east toward the Caribbean Sea. Tulúm is also the Yucatán Mayan word for fence, wall, or trench. The walls surrounding the site allowed the Tulum fort to be defended against invasions. 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.

Tulum was first mentioned by Juan Díaz, 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 stele at the site, with an inscribed date of AD 564 (now in the British Museum’s collection). This has been interpreted as meaning that the stele was likely built elsewhere and brought to Tulum to be reused.

Work conducted at Tulum continued with that of Sylvanus Morley and George P. Howe, beginning in 1913. They worked to restore and open the public beaches. The work was continued by the Carnegie Institution from 1916 to 1922, Samuel Lothrop in 1924 who also mapped the site, Miguel Ángel Fernández in the late 1930s and early 1940s, William Sanders in 1956, and then later in the 1970s by Arthur G. Miller. Through these later investigations done by Sanders and Miller, it has been determined that Tulum was occupied during the late Postclassic period around AD 1200. The site continued to be occupied until contact with the Spanish was made in the early 16th century. The site was abandoned by the end of the 16th century.

In 2016, an underwater archaeological expedition led by Jerónimo Avilés exploring the cenote cave system discovered the skeleton of a female about 30 years of age that may be at least 9,900 years old. According to craniometric measurements, the skull is believed to conform to the mesocephalic pattern, like the other three skulls found in Tulum caves. Three different scars on the skull of the woman showed that she was hit with something hard and her skull bones were broken. Her skull also had crater-like deformations and tissue deformities that appeared to be caused by a bacterial relative of syphilis.

The newly discovered skeleton was 140 meters away from the Chan Hol 2 site. Although archaeologists assumed the divers found the remains of the missing Chan Hol 2, the analysis proved that these assumptions were erroneous in a short time. Stinnesbeck compared the new bones to old photographs of Chan Hol 2 and showed that the two skeletons represent different individuals.

Due to their distinctive features, study co-researcher Samuel Rennie suggests the existence of at least two morphologically diverse groups of people living separately in Mexico during the transition from Pleistocene to Holocene.

Architecture

Tulum has buildings that are similar to those found at other Maya sites on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. These buildings often have a step-like base and sit on a low platform. The doorways are usually narrow, and larger buildings have columns to support the structure. As the walls widen, there are often two sets of decorative strips near the top. Inside, the rooms usually have one or two small windows and an altar at the back. The ceiling is either made of beams and rocks or has a curved shape. This style of architecture is similar to that found at nearby Chichen Itza, but on a smaller scale.

Tulum was protected on one side by steep sea cliffs and on the other by a wall. The wall was about 3–5 meters (10–16 feet) tall, 8 meters (26 feet) thick, and 400 meters (1,300 feet) long on the side facing the sea. The section of the wall that ran across the site was shorter, about 170 meters (560 feet) on both sides. Building this wall required a lot of effort and time, showing how important defense was to the Maya. Watch towers were built at the southwest and northwest corners of the site, proving that Tulum was well protected. Five narrow gateways were in the wall: two on the north and south sides, and one on the west. The steep cliffs protected the seaward side, except for a small cove with a sandy beach. This cove was where canoes returned from trading and fishing. A small cenote near the northern side of the wall provided fresh water. The strong wall helped make Tulum one of the most famous fortified Maya sites.

There are three major structures at the Tulum archaeological site: El Castillo, the Temple of the Frescoes, and the Temple of the Descending God.

The Temple of the Frescoes is one of the most impressive buildings. It has a lower gallery and a smaller second story. This temple was used to observe the sun’s movements. The front of the temple has niches with statues of the Maya "diving god" or Venus deity. A similar figure is also found in the Temple of the Descending God. A stucco sculpture of the "diving god" is still visible above the entrance on the western wall, which is how the temple got its name. A mural on the eastern wall resembles the Mixteca-Puebla style from highland Mexico, though visitors are no longer allowed inside.

The Temple of the Descending God has a single room with a door on the west and a narrow staircase built on top of an older temple. A sculpture with wings, a headdress, and an object in its hands stands in a niche above the door. This sculpture is found throughout Tulum.

In the central area of the site is a pyramid that is 7.5 meters (25 feet) tall. El Castillo was built on top of an older building that had columns and a beam-and-mortar roof. The upper rooms have carvings of serpents on their lintels. The construction of El Castillo happened in stages. A small shrine near the base of the pyramid was used as a beacon for incoming canoes. This shrine is located opposite a cove and landing beach in a break in the sea cliffs. This location may have been why the Maya chose to build Tulum, as it later became an important trading port during the late Postclassic period.

Trading

Both coastal and land paths met at Tulum. Artifacts discovered at or near the site show that people traded with areas across Central Mexico and Central America. Copper items from the mountains of Mexico, as well as flint, pottery, incense burners, and gold objects from the Yucatán, have been found there. Traders brought goods like salt and textiles to Tulum by sea, and these items were then taken inland. Common goods sent out from Tulum included feathers and copper items from inland areas. These goods could be carried by sea to rivers such as the Río Motagua and the Río Usumacincta/Pasión system, which allowed canoes to travel inland, connecting the highlands and lowlands.

The Río Motagua begins in the highlands of Guatemala and flows into the Caribbean Sea. The Río Usumacincta/Pasión river system also starts in the Guatemalan highlands and flows into the Gulf of Mexico. It may have been one of these canoes that Christopher Columbus first saw near the Bay Islands of Honduras. Jade and obsidian are among the valuable items found in this region. Obsidian was brought from Ixtepeque in northern Guatemala, a location about 700 kilometers (430 miles) away from Tulum. The long distance combined with the large amount of obsidian found at the site shows that Tulum was an important place for trading obsidian.

Tourism

The Tulum archaeological site is smaller compared to many other Maya sites nearby and is one of the best-preserved coastal Maya sites. Its close location to modern tourist areas along the Mexican Caribbean coastline and its short distance from Cancún and the surrounding "Riviera Maya" have made it a popular Maya tourist site in the Yucatán Peninsula. Daily tour buses bring many visitors to the site. The Tulum ruins are the third most-visited archaeological site in Mexico, after Teotihuacan and Chichen Itza, receiving over 2.2 million visitors in 2017.

Many cenotes are located in the Tulum area, such as Maya Blue, Naharon, Temple of Doom, Tortuga, Vacaha, Grand Cenote, Abejas, Nohoch Kiin, Calavera, and Zacil-Ha.

Tulum has some of the best beaches in Mexico. Popular beaches in Tulum include Playa Paraiso, Playa Ruinas, Playa Akumal, Papaya Playa, and others. Researchers from CV Villas named Tulum beaches as having the whitest sand, only 1.4 points away from the whitest shade among over 200 beaches worldwide.

The tourist destination is now divided into six main areas: the archaeological site, the Pueblo (or town), the Zona Hotelera (or hotel zone along the seafront), Aldea Zama (south of Pueblo), La Veleta (south-west of Pueblo), and the biosphere reserve of Sian Ka'an.

The impact of tourism on Tulum is a subject of increasing debate. Director Rachel Appel filmed a documentary titled "The Dark Side of Tulum" in 2018 to show the environmental effects of the local tourist industry.

Safety

Based on crime data from Numbeo, Tulum is a safe place for most visitors. The main safety issues in the area are usually natural events like hurricanes that happen from June to October.

Climate

This climate is known as a tropical savanna climate and has a long dry season. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, this type of climate is labeled as Aw, which stands for Tropical Savanna Climate.