So this thing has an interesting history:
It is a small stone bearded head, found in the ruins of Calixtlahuaca in Mexico (an Aztec city) in the 1930s. Further testing has uncovered that the head was buried in the tomb between 1476 and 1510.
BUT the stone head doesn't look Aztec/Mayan at all! In fact, when it was first spotted by the archaeologists on site, they were convinced it was Roman. Further testing in the 90s gave proof that this artifact was in fact matching the styles of Roman art in the 2nd Century AD, and was quite possibly created between 193-235 AD!!!!!
So what does this mean? The
article has more information (apologies if I got stuff wrong), but I can see three possibilities:
1) Most likely this was a hoax, planted on the original archaeologists by someone else on there team. By the time testing was done in the latter half of the 20th century, no one was left to verify this was the truth however, and records are shoddy.
2) This ancient artifact was traded to the Aztecs when the Spanish arrived in the New World. This theory has big problems since the Spanish conquerors did not arrive in large numbers to the Mexican coast until 1519; though some Spanish colonies in the Caribbean did exist before then. And in addition to this,
WHY would the Spanish trade an article of ancient Roman origin to the Aztecs? Why not just give them beads, instead they parted with this ancient statue??
3) Ancient Romans in the years/centuries following the 2nd Century brought it to the New World on an ancient lost expedition. While hard to believe, the ancient Romans and Greeks (and other cultures of the Mediterranean) were very accomplished seafarers. There are many documented expeditions going as far as the Canary Islands (there might even have been ancient Greek/Roman Colonies there? I would have to check this). It is plausible/possible that there were other, undocumented Roman expeditions that tried to go further... maybe so far as to make it to ancient Mexico and visit the Olmecs, but then never return back to Rome. After all, the sea is treacherous. Sadly, there is no way to archaeologically prove this happened so long ago, plus the fact there are no extant records of an ancient Roman expedition making it to the New World over a thousand years before Columbus "discovered" it.
This artifact remains a mystery, as the article states it will remain an anomaly that suggests ancient contact between the Old World and the New World.
Edit: Apparently there is also one found at Comalcalco
too.
