Little Mayan Temple At Tulum
by Mark Tisdale
Title
Little Mayan Temple At Tulum
Artist
Mark Tisdale
Medium
Photograph - Photo
Description
I found Tulum to be almost totally unlike the other Mayan ruins I've visited. Its unusual location on the beach makes it popular with tourists, but its apparent quickly that the buildings at Tulum don't have the scale that sites like Chichen Itza do.
Reading about Tulum later I discovered that Tulum's time in the sun cam after the classic Mayan cities were collapsing. It's beach location may even be attributed to a change in lifestyle of the Maya, now looking to the seas instead of the Yucatan interior.
Whatever the case, it's location is pretty amazing. I hope some day to go back and get a more classic beach day. I managed to time my visit to some rather moody weather. The light was fleeting most of my time there, but I managed to have the good fortune to get a moment or two of good light and moody but interesting skies.
This photo of the Temple of the Descending God is one example of when good light and moody skies meets for a dramatic feeling. I've also read this is sometimes called either the temple of the bee or the temple of the winged god. Whatever you call it, it apparently has a unique place in the pantheon of Maya temples as the gods are usually ascending, not descending. There's no clear explanation of why this one is different, but that's the joys of trying to sort out the past with only material remains and no written record. The archaeologists are left with lots of questions and educated theories but rarely concrete answers in these types of situations.
I've given this picture a somewhat vintage color palate to evoke the feeling of an old image pulled from a classic travel magazine or other period piece. The colors that were already there gave me that feeling of an old travelogue.
Uploaded
June 17th, 2013
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