Vision and sweat builds monuments

A few years ago, I visited the Mayan ruins at Coba in Quintana Roo Mexico to climb one of the Mayan temples, Nohoch Mul.? The complex is quite large, sprawling, extravagant and well kept.? The complex includes a number of structures including multiple pyramids, a Mayan ball court and the white road that connects Coba to Tulum and other Mayan settlements all around the Yucatan.? But our goal was Nohoch Mul.

Nohoch Mul is a pyramid that stands over 150 feet tall and towers through the dense canopy of the Yucatán jungle.? The base of the temple is 150-200 feet on all sides.? Building it was a massive undertaking.? Cenotes dot the area, and there is a pond full of crocodiles nearby.? As we started our climb, all I knew about these temples was the role they played in human sacrifices.? As we climbed, you couldn’t help but appreciate the amount of labor that went into building these pre Columbian skyscrapers in the middle of the Mexican jungle.? As my awe increased, I started to wonder where they quarried the stone from, whose sweat and back breaking labor chiseled, shaped, carried and arranged these huge stones ~150 feet high under the sweltering tropical sun.? Each step and each stone was almost the height of my waist, and these were built around the year 250 AD.? Building Nohoch Mul was a massive, impressive undertaking.

As I climbed and sweated my way to the top, I started wondering who first had the vision to build such a massive structure.? I remember thinking they must’ve had a very pressing reason to invest the resources and effort.? I remember thinking they clearly didn’t just build these temples for ceremonial sacrificial purposes.? As we approached the top, we got our first glimpse of the sky, the tree tops and the answer to my questions.

From above the tree canopy, I could see 4-5 other monuments popping through the sea of tree tops covering the dense jungle below, and the tree top network stretched 40 miles in every direction.? From the top, the climb gave us access to the original “information highway”.? It was easy to see how neighboring villages communicated through (or over) the dense jungle, and also used the viewpoint as an early warning system for approaching invaders and tropical storms.? It struck me how much further I could see when looking in the same direction but on another level.

On top of Nohoch Mul, there is a temple building and a sacrificial altar.? It was macabre to say the least.? I learned later that the altar was built a thousand years after the pyramid by people who inherited the temple, commandeered it for other purposes and had no idea or appreciation of the vision and labor that went into the original construction.

The builders had the vision, grit and gumption to build something extravagant to see approaching storms, to make connections, and to study the stars.? The builders were renown for their understanding of the heavens and the cosmos, so it all made sense.? I couldn’t help but feel a sense of cultural loss that the inheriting groups only used the temples to exert their dominance and to exemplify their inherited greatness.

And it still baffles me that, for thousands of years, farmers in their fields looked up at the temple without knowing who built it, how they built it, or why.? I have much more respect for the monument builders because not everyone builds monuments.