Tulum, dating from the 12th to the 16th centuries A.D., is a vast, walled compound dominated by a pylon-like temple on a high cliff overlooking the Caribbean. The surf, swirling among gigantic boulders on the white sand below, is an unearthly turquoise. I couldn't help but reflect ruefully on the clutter of the Roman Forum, jammed between the Palatine and Capitoline hills, or on the cramped relationship of the Propylaea and Erechtheum to the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis. Other highlights at Chich n Itz were the ritual ball court, nearly twice the size of a football field, and the nearby Platform of the Skulls, where victims' decapitated heads were exhibited. The platform is wrapped with four tiers of bold bas-relief squares of grinning skulls still red with original paint.
Archaeology is an ideal way to synthesize history, art, religion and science.
It centers on physical objects and their conservation and shows how to reason from fragmentary evidence. Archaeology, in short, offers splendid practical and intellectual training. One of my many criticisms of the smart set currently ruling the roost in the humanities departments of the elite schools is that their command of world history and thought is pathetically weak. Their cultural commentary is patchy and chaotic because their methodology is purely literary. That is, they play Scrabble with their haphazard, undigested material, which is cut up, whirled around and overlaid with cutesy or pretentious verbal formulas whose provenance is simply the insular conference circuit of the past two decades.