Bricks and Mortar: The Concealed Politicization of Fired Clay Adobe at Comalcalco, Tabasco

Summary

Comalcalco displays a radical departure from traditional Maya building materials in its brick and seashell mortar construction instead of the paradigmatic Maya limestone. Incised animal, architecture, hieroglyph, and human forms adorn the brick slabs of principal buildings of Comalcalco’s ceremonial core. However, their inward-facing, or concealed, orientation rendered these markings invisible. Because monumental architecture benefited from the labor of non-elites, the purposeful placement of the incised designs strongly suggests a system of messaging in their invisibility. While Comalcalco occupied a strategic location near the Grijalva River, on the edge of Maya territory, its architectural vaulting resembles that of Palenque, indicating a close relationship between the two sites. In ancient Mesoamerica the invisible or concealed wields great power and consequence; at Comalcalco this lack of visibility may be inextricably tied to its peripheral placement within Palenque’s socio-political orbit as well as the greater Maya region. This paper explores several possibilities, none mutually exclusive. Are the incised and concealed bricks of Comalcalco tangible evidence of resistance from those who formed them? From more dominant centers who may have had a role in guiding construction at Comalcalco? Or are they emblematic of a body politic, writ large, which was active within the site?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21109