Open letter 9

Letter 9, Did the Romans visit Mexico?

24 February 2000

Just recently a most interesting discussion has been taking place on the sci.archaeology newsgroup concerning a small figure of a head that was found in Mexico in the 1930s. In an article published in New Scientist it has been suggested that this head is Roman and therefore proof of transatlantic contacts between the Old World and the New that preceded Columbus.Needless to say this has provoked often heated debate between the proponents of "diffusionism" and those supporting the current orthodoxy of "no-contact".

In support of the diffusionists I brought up the subject of Comalcalco. This site is on the coast of the Tobasco region of Mexico and would therefore have been a possible place of landfall for any European or African sailors hardy enough to have crossed to the Americas in Roman times. What makes this city unique is that although it features Mayan style temples, and pyramids, these were not made of stone but out of clay bricks which were then covered with stucco. This, as far as I know, is unique to Comalcalco as all other Mayan cities were constructed out of carved blocks of limestone. What is also interesting is that many of the "bricks", which are in reality more like flat tiles, had pictures, hieroglyphs and other scratch marks incised on them before firing. Most of these etchings are clearly Mayan but some have been recognised as other scripts (notably Carthaginian) adding weight to the idea of transatlantic contact.

When I visited Comalcalco two years ago I was able to take pictures of a few of these as well as some curious heads which were also on display in the little museum attached to the archaeological site.As promised to the sci.archaeology newsgroup I am reproducing some of these pictures here. To me anyway these heads have a curiously Aegean quality about them. Although the eyes have an Oriental look, so too do those of many early Greek works. The heads are bearded and the hats that they wear bear more than a passing resemblance to the cloth caps worn today by the Afganistan Mujahideen. Who they are meant to represent (Romans? Carthaginians? Early Portuguese?) is anybody's guess but one thing one can say is that they don't look like Mayans. Clearly this is an area that needs more research.

(Click on images to enlarge)


head 1	head 2	head 3


Pyramid at Comalcalco	Pyramid brickwork


Brick with Mayan hieroglyphs	Brick with cross and other figures