*Languages: Mayan
*Spoken in Mexico (mainly in the Yucatán Peninsula)
Diana is a high school junior attending Monta Vista High School in California.
“What is that? Is it someone’s face?”
“It’s a D. In Mayan.”
“But it looks like an icon, not a letter.”
I smiled. “That’s the uniqueness of the Mayan alphabet and culture.”
I had just returned from my trip to Cancun, Mexico, sporting a new necklace that immediately caught the eye of my friends. What was supposed to be a casual and relaxing summer trip, filled with swimming, sunbathing, and building sand castles on the beach, turned into an exhausting but eye-opening adventure, as I explored and gained insight into the history and culture of the ancient Mayans.
It was Tuesday, June 5, 2018. The bus was loaded with the tired faces of tourists at seven a.m., all hoping to catch an extra hour of sleep on the bus before arriving at our destination and enjoying a day’s worth of adventure. This desire to sleep was disrupted by our wonderful tour guide Eric, who talked the entire way to Tulum — if it were not for his stories and history lessons on the way there, we would not have understood, appreciated, and fully absorbed the importance and beauty of the spectacular sights we saw that day. From seeing the looming stone structures of the Mayan ruins along with large iguanas, to overlooking the sparkling turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea on a twelve-meter tall cliff, everything I saw, heard, and experienced that day gave me a newfound appreciation for the Mayan people and sparked my curiosity and interest into delving deeper into the Mayan language and culture.
Located eighty miles south of Cancún on the Yucatán Peninsula, Tulum is an enclosed coastal city part of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. In Mayan, Tulum means “wall,” which is fitting because the city is surrounded by walls on three sides (north, south, and west) and the Caribbean Sea on its east. These limestone walls still stand today, and range between three to five meters tall and are about eight meters thick. The rectangular holes in these walls are the entrances to the city. The Mayans inhabited Tulum between the thirteenth and fifteenth century, and it is estimated that the seaside city had around 1600 inhabitants. While present-day tourists know the city as Tulum, the Mayans referred to Tulum as Zamá (zam-MAH), which means “dawn” — which is also fitting because the city faces the rising sun.
El Castillo (taken by Diana Qing)
The Mayan ruins in Tulum lie atop twelve-meter tall cliffs. The tallest and most famous structure among the well-preserved ruins is El Castillo (castle in Spanish), which is a 7.5-meter tall temple pyramid constructed using stone that is situated atop a cliff that overlooks the brilliant blue waters of the Caribbean Sea.
Eric also pointed out a structure situated to the left of El Castillo, which had a carving of a Mayan baby at the top. He told us that the dark rectangular region represents a door, and the placement of the baby being born over the door symbolizes the baby leaving the darkness and entering the light. Like this structure, many other buildings among the ruins have engravings and paintings of figures of gods, deities, and people engaging in common daily activities such as women grinding grain on a metate, along with Mayan glyphs.
Despite the physically exhausting day of walking and climbing up steep stairs under the hot summer sun, it was all worth it at the end because I got to learn about the history, culture, and values of the Mayan people, which is a topic not covered in depth in high school. Eric ended our tour by introducing us to a family of Mayan descent that made necklaces from real silver, gold, and obsidian using the same method the ancient Mayans made jewelry, and incorporated letters of the Mayan alphabet in the necklace. Realizing how interested I was in the Mayan culture and wanting to remember everything Eric had taught me that today, I decided to purchase a silver necklace of a sun, which represents the memories I had made in Tulum, and the letter D, the initial of my first name. Furthermore, the uniqueness of the Mayan alphabet of representing letters using small icons and images only further enhanced my interest and desire to explore deeper the rich history, creations and institutions, and beliefs of the Mayan people.
Thanks for tuning in to this piece of New Semantics Volume 2! Get ready for a NSLI-Y Alumni Insights post next week!!!!
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