David and I just got back from our Honeymoon in Cancún, Mexico! During our stay by the Riviera Maya, we celebrated 1 year of knowing each other and took an excursion to Coba and Tulum, where we learned about the Mayans and their ancient culture.
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| Hoop for ancient Mayan game |
At Coba the excavation site is huge, so we rode bikes on trails
to each spot.
Ancient Mayans played a game with hoops where two
seven-player teams would try to get a ball through the hoop. The game not only
looked ridiculously challenging, but pretty morbid—to honor the victorious
team, the captain of the winning team was sacrificed. If I remember correctly,
the game is shown pretty well in the movie The Road to El Dorado (clip).
We even got to hike up one of the temples while we were
there!
Afterwards we went swimming in a Cenote, an underground fresh-water
sinkhole. The water was beautiful—it was crystal clear. Check out this clip of
Morgan jumping!
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| Tulum |
When the Spanish visited the Mayans in the early 1500s, they thought
they found a wicked people, because the Mayans were sacrificing people and
worshiping a feathered serpent, which the Spanish took to be a symbol for the
devil. (The serpent is a sign for the devil that beguiled Adam and Eve). The Spanish were able to use this
rational to massacre the inhabitants. Our tour guide explained to us that both
types of serpents could be symbols. The Mayans worship the feathered serpent because
it represents an angel and has feathers to visit earth and return to heaven as
it pleases. The featherless serpent is a sign of the devil because it lost its
feathers; it is a “fallen angel”.
Normally, the serpent is a symbol of the devil; however, in
the Bible (Numbers 41:8) Moses holds up a serpent on a staff to the children of Moses and asks
them to look upon the serpent and live. In this story, the serpent on the staff
is representative of Jesus Christ. Many were given the opportunity to look and
live but few did (Ensign).
We saw another ancient Mayan Temple, similar to one we found
at Coba, and discussed its similarities to Solomon’s temple. I felt grateful
that my seminary teacher back from freshman year of high school spent so much
time describing Solomon’s temple in the Old Testament.
There’s an outer wall, homes for the high priests, an inner
wall, and a temple with two rooms (holy place and holy of holies).
The front of the main temple in Tulum has three pictures—two with images
and a third that is empty. They could symbolize God the Father, Jesus
Christ and the Holy Ghost. (Sorry it's so hard to make out in the picture below!)
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| Front of the temple with three carvings |
A symbol that was on nearly every temple was an upside-down man (or try googling "Tulum temple of the descending god"). Our tour guide explained that it depicts a God that would descend from the
heavens (him being drawn up-side down to
represent descending down) in all of his glory as he once did in the past, in
other words Jesus Christ.
We loved our tour and our tour guide Helaman! If you ever
decide to take a trip to Cancun, Mexico area, I’d highly recommend you book a
tour with Helaman at HelamanTours.com.
-Mr. D. and Mrs. M.
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| Yes, we're standing on a rock together :) |
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| ...Is it just me or is the Predator a Mayan God? |
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| See the two eyes and mouth on the corner of this building? |
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