Garza-Valdes

Garza-Valdes and the Mayan Jade Artifact

In 1983, Leoncio Garza-Valdes, a medical doctor in San Antonio, Texas, and an amateur archaeologist, was examining a Mayan jade artifact that was assumed to be modern forgery. He was puzzled by lacquer-like coating on the object that he speculated might have been produced by bacteria. Garza-Valdes took the artifact to the radiocarbon dating lab at the University of Arizona. Scientists there were able to scrape off enough of the coating, as well as some bloodstains on the object, to give a date of about A.D. 400. The carving style suggested that the age should have been about 200 B.C.. However, if the bioplastic-polymer, for that is what it seemed to be, had been forming over the centuries, it would be a mixture of older and newer material. So perhaps the object really was 600 years older.

Following the carbon dating of the shroud, it occurred to Garza-Valdes that perhaps the fibers of the shroud were also coated with a bioplastic coating. And perhaps this also affected the carbon dating of mummy 1770. If ancient linen was subject to such a coating, then all bets were off on the carbon dating of the shroud until it was examined.

Garza-Valdes managed to inspect *** in Turin. Stephen Mattingly ****

Garza-Valdes and the Scanning Electron Microscope

Garza-Valdes had said: “With a scanning electron microscope, I found the fibers were completely covered by the bioplastic coating (polyhydroxyalkanoate) and by many colonies of fungi which usually thrive on this polymer...” But other scientists find this statement flawed For one thing, there is no way to determine the definitive composition of an organic material by scanning electron microscope. Garza-Valdes provided photomicrograph showing a "filamentous cell" that turned out to be an ultimate cell from the flax structure. Furthermore, it is well known that such polymers (they do exist on some ancient objects) obtain their carbon material from the host (fibers in this case) and not from the atmosphere, hence they do not significantly alter the C14 dating. Even if they could alter the date, the amount of material needed would need to be significant. On this point, Gove took exception with the bioplastic theory and agreed.

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