Tulum is located on
the seacoast near Cancún. This scene depicts the labor
required to uncover each monument chronicled in the expedition
of Stephens and Catherwood. This lithograph includes the only
known portrait of Catherwood, shown to the right measuring the
temple. The viewer's eye is drawn to Catherwood and an assistant,
despite the fact that the indigenous laborers are in the foreground
clearing the ruin.
Catherwood notes that Tulum was especially challenging to uncover
because it was “so blocked up with trees, that it was by
mere accident that this building and several others were discovered.”
Although it was the indigenous laborers who did most of the intense
clearing, in his Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas,
and Yucatán Stephens himself states that “I pushed
the Indians away and cleared out the loose earth with my hands.”
This quote demonstrates Stephens’ feeling of possessiveness
and his desire to be credited as the true discoverer of the monument.
[Spanish version].
MEGAN BURBANK and CLAIRE WILSON |