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ComalcalcoAncient City of Brick and Stucco

Lorenzo Ochoa*

Tabasco is the point furthest to the North -west that Mayan cultural remains can befound: monumental architecture using the

false arch or Mayan vault; the ball game; poly-

chromatic ceramics; inscriptions on stelas andaltars; and knowledge of writing, mathematics,astronomy and the calendar. Many cities, large andsmall, from the coast to the foot of the moun-tains and from the Chontalpa to the river region,developed from the first centuries of the Chris -tian era on: Comalcalco, El Tortuguero, SantaElena, Pomoná, Reforma, Revancha, El Arenal,Jonuta, San Claudio and several others. These

* Researcher at the UNAM Institute for AnthropologicalRe search.

Photos reproduced by permission of the National Institute ofAnthropology and History, Conaculta-INAH-Mex.

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cities show the achievements of Tabasco’s Maya-Chontal people. Despite their outstanding knowl-edge and culture, no one has recognized theirfundamental contribution to the foundation anddevelopment of Palenque, the regional capital ofone of the most important autonomous states of theMayan lowlands.

At the height of the development of Mayanculture, wars between cities were very common;this was the case of Tabasco as well. During oneof these wars, between the armies of Comal cal coand Tortuguero in December of A.D. 649, BalamAhau, the ruler of Tortuguero, captured and sac-rificed Ox Balam, the sovereign of Comalcalco,which surrendered to the victors. As befitting hisrank, the remains of Ox Balam were returned tohis home city. This version of historical eventscomes from the interpretation by Marc Uwe Zen -der of the inscriptions on bone, shell and mantaray bones found in offerings placed together withthe ancient king’s remains and recovered in 1998by Ricardo Armijo from temples in Comalcalco’sNorth Plaza.1

Comalcalco has revealed its history and se -crets little by little. Until not long ago, it was fa -mous for its bricks, decorated using different tech -niques, described in most detail in the cataloguewritten by Luis F. Álvarez, Guadalupe Lan da andJosé Luis Romero.2 The only other information wehad were a few dates from the eighth century andtheir emblem glyph, carved on three clay tabletsmade known by José Luis Romero in 1990.3

According to Zender, Armijo and Judith Ga -llegos, other inscriptions describe how, in the lateeighth century, a “temple guardian,” the “Lord ofFire,” called Ah Pakal Tan celebrated rituals inhonor of the god Chaak for 12 years. He waspraying for an end to the long droughts that mayhave punished the Mayan lowlands and, as I havesubmitted in other places, may have been one ofthe causes of the Mayan civilization’s collapse.

Now we know a little more about the historyof that ancient city that the Chontals built withbrick, covered in stucco and later abandoned.Comalcalco would remain there, buried underthe weight of the centuries and oblivion until the

Now we know a little more about the history of that ancient city that the Chontals built

with brick, covered in stucco and later abandoned.

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Captive, southeast corner, Temple I.

Comalcalco reveals its secrets little by little.

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late nineteenth century, when it began to be vis-ited by travelers and researchers.

COMALCALCO’S PLACE IN MAYAN ARCHAEOLOGY

After the collapse of the Mayan culture, many ofPalenque’s inhabitants emigrated; some settledon the coastal plain and the San Pedro and SanPablo Basin, from Jonuta to Comalcalco. In thoselowlands prey to flooding, the Chontal construc-tions were made of brick, as a substitute for stone,unavailable in the region. The most widely knowncity made of brick is Comalcalco, which beganto be visited after Desiré Charnay published LesAnciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde (The An -cient Cities of the New World) in 1885. Aboutthe same time, another visitor, Captain Pedro Pa bloRomero went there, com missioned in the Co lum -bus Expedition headed up by Francisco del Pasoy Troncoso on the 400th anniversary of the dis-covery of America. However, little is known aboutthis visit; Romero added nothing important in hisreport to what Charnay had written, but he wasthe first Mex ican to visit the city for archaeolog-ical reasons. He did not even mention if he hadvisited the site before (a possibility, since he wasoriginally from the town of Comalcalco).

The real role this city plays in Mayan archae-ology would only be recognized when the first ofthe two volumes of Tribes and Temples was pub-lished in 1926-1927, a seminal work for anyoneinterested in the history, scenery, archaeologyand customs of early twentieth-century Tabasco.This work was the result of the expedition led in1925 by Frans Blom and Oliver la Farge, spon-sored by Tulane University.4 Later, in the 1950s,Gordon F. Ekholm, from the New York Museumof Na tu ral History, worked there; in the 1960s,George An drews, from the University of Oregon,did his re search there, as did Román Piña Chanfrom Mexico’s Natio nal Institute of Anthro polo -gy and History. Finally, Ponciano Salazar Orte -gón worked the site until his death. In the early1990s, Ri car do Armijo took charge of the researchinto the an cient city.

Chontal constructions were made of brick, as a substitute for stone, unavailable in the region. The most widely known city of brick is Comalcalco.

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East view of Temple I.

Stucco decoration, Temple VII.

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CITY OF BRICK AND STUCCO

Although Comalcalco was settled long before,the city grew to a large size after the fourth andfifth centuries A.D. and reached its political, cul-tural and commercial height around A.D. 500. Itsgolden age would then last until the eighth andninth centuries. Two clay tablets found by Pon cia -no Salazar in Temple I have inscriptions, one of thecity’s emblem glyph and another saying that animportant personage died in the year 846. Un -fortunately, because we do not know the contextin which these tablets were found, we cannot addmore information. The impressively monumentalTemple I closes off the extreme western end ofthe North Plaza of one of Comal calco’s most im -portant architectural complexes. A chapel builtof perishable materials crowned the building inthe last period that the area was inhabited. Abroad stairway rising 20 meters above the level ofthe plaza provides access to the chapel. As withother buildings, the Chontals modeled the stuccowith absolute mastery. Human and fantastic fig-ures that today can barely be discerned are de -picted carrying out rituals of human sacrifice onthe southeast corner. Temples II and III flank thenorthern and southern corners of Temple I. Sev -eral buildings are aligned with these temples fromwest to east, although some have only been par-tially explored. It was in Temple III and Temples

II and IIA where Ricardo Armijo recovered sev-eral dozen objects carved in bone, shell and mantaray bone from clay urns that were part of funeralofferings.

Apart from these buildings, the Great Acro -polis includes the palace, extended by its two long,narrow galleries. A little lower, slightly to thesouthwest of the palace, is a tomb, described byFrans Blom and Oliver La Farge in the first vol-ume of Tribes and Temples. In 1925, when theydiscovered it, it still had clear remains of red andseveral figures modeled in stucco decorating itswalls: they noted each one’s position, clothing andornaments, including pectorals and bracelets. Fi -nally, they traced the head of figure seven be causethey thought it one of the most exquisite exam-ples of Mayan art they had ever seen. In general,they considered the tomb’s stucco figures mas-terfully and very freely done, as had never beforebeen seen in Mayan art. Today, only a few tracesremain of this great stucco work.

Lower down, toward the Great Acropolis’snorth western edge are Temples VI and VII. Tem -ple VI is only about 2.8 meters high, with a base

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View of the palace. Stucco figures inside the Palace.

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of three superimposed earth-filled tiers, coveredwith a layer of stucco, with a stairway at the center.On top is the temple, made up of two rectangularrooms divided by a wall and with pilasters grac-ing the entrance. Walls, vault and pilasters weremade of stucco-covered brick. Román Piña Chandubbed this the “mosaic basement,” since on thefront of it, modeled in stucco, is an extraordinaryface of the sun god, Kinich Ahau. Researchersrecovered a human head modeled in stucco rep-resenting a bearded personage with a scarred face(a characteristic of individuals of high social rankamong the Mayan elite) from the rubble. On thebuilding’s west side is Temple VII. On its southside, a series of richly ornamented, seated humanfigures also modeled in stucco are depicted. Thecity was at its height.

At that time, merchants from central Vera cruzvisited Comalcalco and other urban centers of Ta -basco’s coastal plain. Later, groups of Nahuatl ori-gin from central Mexico arrived and settled in aplace the Spanish later named Provincia de Ci -matanes. So, when the Spanish conquered theregion in the sixteenth century, the Cimatecs, whoexercised important economic influence in theentire region, had taken refuge in the abandonedcity. By then, the political-economic importance

of Comalcalco and the Chontals was a thing ofthe past. No one remembered the city’s originalname. No one remembered the wars that it wagedagainst the river region city, Tortuguero, in the eighthcentury, or the rituals that centuries before thepriests had to perform to invoke rain during thegreat droughts that punished the area. The yearsof splendor of the ancient city of brick and stucco,a city that covered more than six square kilome-ters, had been buried by time. Temples tombs,palaces, plazas: all these would fall captive to thejungle.

NOTES

1 Ricardo Armijo, Miriam Gallegos and Marc Uwe Zender,“Urnas funerarias, textos históricos y ofrendas en Comal -calco,” Los investigadores de la cultura maya, vol. 8 (II) (Cam -peche, Campeche: Universidad Autónoma de Campeche,2000), pp. 313-323; and Ricardo Armijo, “Comalcalco. Laantigua ciudad maya de ladrillo,” Arqueología Mexicana, vol. 11,no. 61 (Mexico City: Editorial Raíces, 2003), pp. 30-37.

2 Luis F. Álvarez, Guadalupe Landa and José Luis Romero,Los ladrillos de Comalcalco (Villahermosa, Tabasco: Go -bierno del Estado de Tabasco, 1990).

3 José Luis Romero, “Tres tablillas de barro con inscripcionesglíficas de Comalcalco, Tabasco,” Tierra y agua. La antro -pología en Tabasco, no. 1 (Villahermosa, Tabasco: Gobiernodel Estado de Tabasco, 1990), pp. 7-14.

4 Both volumes were published by Tulane University.

Comalcalco grew to a large size after the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. Its golden age would

then last until the eighth and ninth centuries.

Kinich Ahau mosaic, Temple VI.

South side of the Great Acropolis.