The Claims About the Comalcalco Bricks are False

Recently the Mayan site of Comalcalco has been garnering a lot of attention by the media. This interest was initially spurred by the claim that a brick found at the site mentioned December 21, 2012. This then led to the media reporting on a story that has been around for a while; that some of the Comalcalco bricks contain marks reminiscent of maker's marks used by the Romans. It turns out both of these claims are false.

I will first discuss the claim that one of these bricks are connected to 2012. I have explained this in a few other threads, but I am willing to repeat it once more. The date on the brick in question is not a Long Count date, but a Calendar Round date. A Calendar Round date is the use of a Haab date and a Tzolkin date together. The Haab was the Mayans 365-day calendar used for planting that was based on the Earth's movement around the Sun. The Tzolkin was a 260-day calendar used primarily for ceremonial purposes. Used together they produced the 52-year Calendar Round. Due to the fact that after 52 years the Calendar Round would recycle it was never used for distant dates. So, the date on the brick could refer to many other dates over the years other than 2012. On top of that the fact that the Calendar Round wasn't used for distant dates would seemingly preclude it referring to 2012. Furthermore, the Calendar Round date on the brick doesn't even match up with the Calendar Round date for December 21, 2012.

For the second claim in regards to Rome I will post a response I received from Stanley Guenter who is an archaeologist that specializes in the Maya.

The bricks of Comalcalco look nothing like the bricks of Rome. The Comalcalco bricks are thinner and wider than Roman bricks, as I recall. The etchings on Comalcalco bricks are crude, but clearly Maya in style, and contain absolutely no elements from Roman or European iconography. There is absolutely nothing about Comalcalco that would make one think of Rome, other than the word “brick” itself. There is as much reason to invoke Mohenjo Daro or Babylon as there is Rome if you want to make Old World comparisons, but there is no connection at all. The architecture at the site of Comalcalco is standard Maya in style, and the only difference is that the buildings are made of brick.

What people have claimed is that there are marks on some of these Comalcalco bricks that are nearly identical to brick-makers’ marks on Roman bricks:www.mexconnect.com...

This is 100% false. Those signs that supposedly show up on Comalcalco bricks do not show up there. Someone has simply invented them. Notice that they show images of Comalcalco bricks, but not with these symbols. These symbols only appear in that graphic as isolated drawings that compare pretty much 100% with the supposed Roman ones. This is an old tactic of pseudoscientists, where someone makes a bald-faced lie and then other, gullible, folks pick it up and it spreads virally. Note that Barry Fell is a notorious pseudoscientist, who made preposterous claims about finding Phoenician texts in Mississippian mounds, while Clyde Winters claims here:
www.oocities.org...
to be able to read this very Comalcalco brick in question as a bilingual Olmec-Maya text. Winters is a notorious Afrocentrist who thinks the Olmec were Africans and his translation of this Comalcalco brick’s “Olmec” writing is compared to Malinke (Mandinka) language. Check out the link for his “translation” of this brick. Winters is an obvious fraud and mountebank who doesn’t have a clue. The idea that there are Roman or African connections here is ridiculous and completely contradicted by the facts. Sadly, that will in no way restrict its popularity.

Thanks for bringing this to light. This is another fine example where people are being de-educated by frauds. Real works as you pointed XCalibur254 involved actual work. It takes time to look over the material and to come to an understanding of what is know and what is not known. This can be destroyed in moments by the likes of the frauds that have been explicitly named.

I recall Asimov making similar complaints. He was excellent at describing complex ideas to the average person. He was willing to continue to educate people despite the onslaught on the charlatans that could undo years of work with their chicanery.

Keep up the good work at uncovering these lies.

reply to post by Xcalibur254

lol

to claim this was roman somehow,
feeds into the revisionist agenda that's been going on for sometime
wherein it is claimed that caucasians [or africans*, though there might be a remote possibility] were in america before the ancestors of the tribes

fortunately,
as the poster above points out,
there are those who are only interested in the truth

S&F

* the humans of the 1st Sun [Sun of Jaguar] were described as black giants

And as expected all the people who were hyping up the Comalcalco bricks are nowhere to be found. This is really starting to bother me. These ancient cultures are interesting and worthy of study on their own merit. Yet as soon as someone takes away the conspiracies and supernatural claims based on shoddy research and outright lies people lose interest. Please people, take an actual interest in your species history not the "history" being created by con men.

S+F, excellent OP Xcalibur254, I swear some of these crackpot theories look as though they're thrown out there in order to garner Web traffic to the author's site in order to cash in on the adverstising. And once out there they'll be repeated ad-naseum by the uninformed or the willfully ignorant.

stereologist, love the reference to Asimov and his taking to task the "charlatans that could undo years of work with their chicanery."

Nice to see some logic prevail along these topics!

I stand corrected if indeed those bricks have turned out to be a fraud and I have continued to look for any genuine pictures to back up the case but as of present unearthed nothing..I am leaning towards it being made up for $$$ or publicity for some of the researchers involved...case in point.

The fact is that obviously this is not an isolated incident,pseudo-researchers have been doing this for years,many that were though of highly with regard at one time or another.

have to admit though,if it were true it would be incredible and fascinating to say the least.

One thing also has to be kept in mind,this goes on both sides of the line here.
you have those also who would not want anything contrary to their 'life's work' revoked,changed or smudged.
and you have may out there who would not want some of these "mysteries" let out of the bag.for many reasons other than the ones stated.

I want to state for the record that I would never approve or promote anything false for any reason period.

We have to learn from our mistakes or we will continue to never know the real 'truths' waiting to be discovered and if becoming humbled helps that then I welcome it every time.