I was going to post this the other day, but couldn't but now blogger is just ZIPPING along - congratulations guys! I guess the timing for this post now kinda matches with what tom mentioned about historical anomalies and inaccuracies... somewhat - LOL.
Comalcalco was a major Mayan port city that was believed to have flourished between 700-900 AD. Though others place it much older, and even perhaps older still, since the finds at Nakbe in the Petén, it may go back to 1000 BCE, and beyond. Since there was no rock quarry or stone to use in the area, they built the buildings out of bricks made of baked mud. The Maya raised HUGE structures made out of these bricks. That in itself makes this place unique to all the other Mayan locations. But, you see, the bricks have inscriptions on them.
In 1977 and 1978 the National Institute of Anthropology and History excavated the site and discovered that it was made up entirely of these bricks. And the site is HUGE. What they also found was that approximately 3% of the bricks had inscriptions on them, on the INSIDE. In a study conducted by Mexican archeologist Neil Steede of the National Institute of Anthropology and History, he
discovered that 3,671 bricks had inscriptions. Of these bricks, 2,129 had Mayan inscriptions on them. But 499 of the bricks were found to have completely out of place inscriptions. 13.6% of the bricks were found to have Old World inscriptions on them. These inscriptions include writing in Arabic, Phoenician, Libyan, Egyptian, Ogam, Tifinag, Chinese, Burmese, and Paliburmese. In all, about 17.3% of the bricks were inscribed with different languages, but if they had any Mayan inscriptions on them, they were designated to the Mayan inscription pile. Other bricks from this site had drawings on them, and 308 of the bricks were completely unknown and indecipherable.
According to Steede, all of the bricks were carefully photographed, and copies sent to the Epigraphic Society of San Diego, California, where the languages were identified and verified. Several of the bricks had Mayan inscriptions
and another language---typical translations. Some of the bricks were decorated with elephants, and other creatures not indigenous to the Americas.
(This is where the examiners abilities to figure this mystery out take on an almost comical note - to me at least.) Dr. Barry Fell, of the Epigraphic Society felt that the bricks were part of some type of language school at Comalcalco, where students used the bricks to write on. (Because using bricks to write on is so practical? WHAT?) The inscriptions weren't visible until after they had dismantled the structure. Steele made the observation that the problem with the dating is that the languages on the bricks go back to 0 A.D. to 400 A.D., while Colmalcalco is believed to have been built and/or inhabited between A.D. 700 to 900. Steele believes that the bricks may have been part of a more ancient structure that was dismantled and the bricks used in the newer building. (Okay, this is a little more reasonable - LOL - although it still doesn't explain the other languages.) He also notes that since they have only looked at 1/2 of 1% of the total amount of bricks, there could be a million inscribed bricks to discover. He also goes on to say that the linguists are all in agreement with the languages on the bricks, but mainstream archeology refuses to accept it, simply stating that it "just can't be correct." (This is where they usually lose it - by trying to fit the new information into the old framework instead of including the new information into a NEW framework - wouldn't it just be better to say that they just don't KNOW? Or are they afraid of admitting that some of their past assumptions might be incorrect? Hell - they're ALL incorrect at one point or another - just depends on your perspective at the time - oh well. It was an interesting article anyway.) (Thanks to Blue Moon News for the info.)
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