| 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 |
