Tulum is one of the sites formerly registered and known to the Western world, because in 1518 the Spanish chronicler Juan Diaz narrated having seen a city as large as Seville "with a tower, which was undoubtedly Castle Tulum, which at that time it was still occupied by the inhabitants of that independent leadership. Sources century XBI designating the site with the name "Zamá", possibly referring to the Mayan word for "morning" or "sunrise", which is understandable because the site is located at the highest portion of the east coast, where just contemplate the sunrise is a particularly remarkable spectacle.

The name of Tulum, therefore, appears to be relatively recent. Translated into Spanish as a "wall" or "palizada", a clear allusion to the wall that is preserved here, this name seems to have been used to designate when the city was already in ruins, and it is precisely this name that it is reflected in the nineteenth century, when Stephens and Catherwood as "rediscovering" completely abandoned just before the start of the Caste War.