Travel Log: Day 5

Wednesday, July 2, 2008: Cozumel, Mexico and Tulum

This day was one that I had been looking forward to for a very long time. I am fascinated by archaeology and history, but I lack the ability to remember details like dates, names, and places...I guess that would mean all of history. Oh, well. Anyways, part of why I was so excited about this day was that we were going to the ruins in Tulum and our guide was going to be a Mexican man named Helaman. He has been a tour guide for a long time and he also taught seminary in Cancun for several years. He says that when he taught seminary is where he really began to get interested in the symbolism of the ruins. His main purpose in this days tour was to teach us about the symbolism of King Solomon's temple that could be found in the ancient Mayan ruins in Mexico. It was so cool! I wish I could have recorded everything he said so I would always remember it, but I didn't.

I found it very interesting that although this particular site was built after the Nephites were no more, so it is definitely a Lamanite site, there were so many things present that tied into the Savior and temples--just twisted. Some things I remember about that site:

One of the temple buildings had 13 steps leading up to the structure which had 3 rooms because these people believed in 3 separate heavens. The 13th step represented their god who we would call Jesus Christ.
The largest temple structure has 3 doorways, one for each of their gods. I cannot remember the names they gave them, but above each doorway is a space with an image representing each god. The first one stands with his head towards the heavens and is the god over all others and dwells in the heavens. The second is standing on his head which represents that he came to dwell on this earth and is the son of the first god. The third space is left empty because this god has never had a physical form, lives as a spirit and can dwell both in heaven and earth. Is it just me or could this be Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost? There are 2 altars in front of the temple. One larger in front of this large temple that was used for animal sacrifices and a smaller one at the top of the temple stairs in front of the doorways which was for human sacrifice. Now, we all know that the Mayans performed human sacrifice, but check this out. They had certain religious holidays throughout the year that required animal sacrifice and others that required human sacrifice. The person sacrificed had to be virtuous and clean and their heart was cut out and offered to the gods. On some occasions part of the flesh was eaten and some of the blood was drunk. Totally morbid and gross, but Helaman (our guide) taught us what this came from. In the beginning their gods required only human sacrifice, but after one of their gods came to earth to save mankind they began practicing human sacrifice. Helaman explained how this was a twisting of the original law of sacrifice found in the old testament (law of moses) and then the higher law following Christ's fulfilment of the law of Moses where our sacrifice was to be of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. The sacrament was twisted from eating bread and drinking "wine" in representation of the Savior to actually eating human flesh and drinking blood. Interesting....
A smaller structure in the middle of the courtyard also had the same carvings of their gods above the doorways and on the corners of the building their are faces of their god who came to earth, one with his eyes closed representing his death and one with his eyes open representing that he was resurrected.

There were several structures which were the homes of the priests. These each had two rooms with an altar in the back room which would have been their bedrooms. This altar was used to pray every morning and night. All of the doors of these homes faced east and the temple.

The temple grounds were built the same way as Solomon's temple with an outer wall and an inner wall. There were the same number of entrances in the same locations. I was very impressed by how much truth could be found in the symbolism of this Mayan temple and saddened by the loss of truth which led so many people astray. I am so grateful to have the restored gospel here on this earth today and to be able to attend the temples we have now on the earth.

Here are some pictures of Andrew and I at Tulum.

Thank you Helaman for being a great tour guide, we had a blast!