Often seen on murals and on pottery, Maya blue is a vibrant color created centuries ago by the Maya, a Mesoamerican civilization in Central America.

The Maya first established colonies in 1800 B.C. and the civilization flourished for thousands of years. The Maya are best known for being one of the  first-known pre-Colombian civilizations to use a writing system, and for their fine art. Mayan art is especially recognizable by the blue pigment they apply on their art pieces. This brilliant color is called ‘Maya Blue.’

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‘Maya Blue’ pigment was said to be the color of the Mayan rain god, Chaak, and thus was an important part of rituals. These rituals were usually conducted on days when the sky became dry, clear, and a color similar to Maya blue, in a hope that rain would follow.

A description of these rituals, collected by a 16th - century Spanish priest, told of brutal human sacrifices where victims were stripped and painted in Maya blue before being thrown onto a stone alter where their hearts were cut out.  

The blue color is extremely durable and highly resistant to the effects of weather, age, acid and even modern solvents. The components of the color were not identified until the 1960’s, when chemists concluded that the pigment contained a dye called indigo and a clay mineral known as palygorskite. Combined with heat, these elements produced Maya blue.

But researchers still wonder if the pigment was made before, or as part of, the ritual. Dean E. Arnold, a professor of anthropology at Wheaton College and his colleagues from the Field Museum in Chicago and Northwestern University, think they have the answer to this question. Their research began with a three-legged bowl that had been stored for several decades at the Field Museum.

The bowl was found in a sinkhole named the Sacred Cenote. An explorer named Edward Thomson made the discovery early in the 20th Century. Along with multiple other Maya artifacts and 127 skeletons, Thomson also found a 14-foot-deep layer of blue sediment at the bottom of the sinkhole.

The bowl Dr. Arnold studied contained a piece of incense the Maya had burned during one of their rituals. Within the incense, the researchers found small bits of blue and white. They then used a scanning, tunneling microscope to take molecular-scale images of the incense that identified the bits to be indigo and palygorskite.            

This process determined that the pigment was created as part of the ritual and the ingredients were molded together by the heat from the incense.

This conclusion also explained the blue sediment on the bottom of the sacred Cenote. If the paint had been made just before being thrown down the well, it would not have had time to set and would have washed off.  

The discovery also proved that, not only were people thrown in the well, but so was the pottery painted in Maya blue.

{Source: New York Times}