Head from Calitztlauac

A terracotta head was discovered by archaeologist José García Payón during a 1933 excavation. They were held in the Mexican site of Calitztlauaca, located about 65 kilometers southwest of Mexico City . The artifact was located under three intact adobe layers of the excavation , in the burial belonging to the Aztecs , among a number of other objects dated to the period 1476-1510. The latter included jewelry made of rock crystal and shells, clay painted bowls and jugs, an ocelot figurine, gold plates, spearheads made of obsidian and flint ^[1] .

Officially, information about the find was first published by Jose Payone only in 1960. The features of a terracotta head, which is small, about 3 cm in diameter, are European facial features and a general correspondence to the style of ancient Roman sculptures. At the same time, a cardinal difference from local samples of fine art is pronounced ^[2] . Although some researchers consider it a fake, there are works proving the possibility of Roman origin and, in particular, are classified as belonging to the type of Roman statuettes of the II century BC. e. In 2001, Romeo H. Hristov from the University of New Mexico and Santiago Genoves T. from the Autonomous National University of Mexico confirmed this opinion, which was taken by some researchers as clear evidence of pre-Columbian European-American contacts ^[3] .

The main views on the appearance of the terracotta find come down to the following opinions:

• Hoax. According to some reports, the find could have been put into the excavation by one of the expedition members with the aim of playing a cruel joke with the supervisor - Jose Garcia Payone ^[1] . However, the famous archaeologist Romeo H. Hristov believes these statements are just rumors. Nevertheless, it is currently impossible to confirm or deny it, since all persons directly involved in the excavation have died ^[3] .
• The appearance of the terracotta find, together with the first Europeans from the time of Columbus and Cortes . This is considered possible, but very unlikely. At the same time, it is noted that the headpiece of the figure has some similarities with similar objects of the Scandinavians or Vikings ^[3] .
• The figure came to America through Southeast Asia in a Chinese or Indian ship. This version was proposed in 1961 by the Austrian ethnographer Robert Heine-Geldern ( German: Robert von Heine-Geldern ) and received some support ^{[4] [5]} .
• The figure came to America with a ship of Romans, Carthaginians, or Berbers , carried away to the ocean. The argument of this version is the evidence of their stay in the VI-V century BC in Tenerife and Lanzarote of the Canary Islands ^[3] . One of the supporters of this explanation, University of Illinois archaeologist David Grove , notes that the remnants of the ship after a shipwreck in the New World does not at all imply any “contact” ^[6] .

• Some inappropriate artifacts