Â鶹ÒùÔº

In a recent study in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica, Dr. Dean Arnold and his colleagues, Joseph Ball, Laure Dussubieux, and Jennifer Tachek, examined 17 samples of Maya Blue from pottery sherds dated to the Late-Terminal Classic Period (AD 680–860) at Buenavista del Cayo, Belize. Maya Blue was a unique pigment made by combining organic indigo with inorganic palygorskite.

Unlike pure indigo, it exhibits much better stability when exposed to sunlight and acids. This has allowed the color to persist for centuries, even in the tropical lowland climates of Mesoamerica.

Maya Blue's composition was only discovered in the 1960s, while the method of creation was discovered some years later. At the base of an offering vessel found at Chichén Itzá, researchers identified indigo, Maya Blue, and palygorskite together with melted copal incense. It was thus theorized that Maya Blue was likely created during the ritual burning of copal in the presence of indigo and palygorskite.

Blue was a sacred color among the Maya, associated with sacrifice, water, rain, and fertility. The 16th-century priest Fray Diego de Landa reported that the human sacrifices and the sacrificial altars were often painted blue.

Use of Maya Blue or knowledge of its production was likely restricted to a few artists. Ball elaborates, "Such artisans were most likely sub-royal members of the royal court, possibly even non-regent members of the royal family itself. The color blue was a sacred color to the Maya, and the manufacture of Maya Blue involved esoteric knowledge that would not have been widely shared or widely available.

"In our specific case, blue was associated with the god Chaac, and Chaac was likely the patron deity of Buenavista-Komkom (this is the modern Guatemalan orthography for the center, which combines the modern name for the archaeological site, Buenavista, with the ancient, Classic period glyphic name, Komkom) as well as its royal lineage."

Chaac was a rain god and would have been an important god in terms of maintaining agricultural productivity for the Maya.

There are still, however, many open questions about Maya Blue, including whether the palygorskite used to manufacture it was mined locally or brought in from foreign sources.

Various palygorskite samples were analyzed between the 1960s and 1990s, and results showed that different mines can be distinguished by their differing compositions. So far, Maya Blue from the Sacred Cenote and Chichén Itzá likely came from three mines: in Sacalum, Yo'Sah Kab, and a third unknown source.

To determine if the Maya Blue from Buenavista del Cayo (hereinafter referred to as Buenavista) was also of non-local origin, various samples recovered from the site were analyzed.

Located in the upper Belize River Valley, Buenavista was a medium-sized center on the bank of the Rio Mopan. During excavation, various ceremonial vessels with Maya Blue were recovered, belonging to the Late Classic (ca. AD 680–780/90) and early Terminal Classic periods.

The analysis showed that the palygorskite used at Buenavista was mined at Sacalum more than 375 km away.

While overland routes between the sites existed, it is most likely that either Maya Blue or palygorskite, along with the knowledge of its production, traveled together with maritime Maya canoers along the north-central Yucatan coast, or from northeastern Quintana Roo to the mouth of the Belize River. From here, canoers may have traveled upstream to Buenavista.

According to Ball, these maritime routes would likely have been faster, safer, and more convenient. "Most especially, they were a faster and more efficient means of transporting cargoes of all types than overland backpackers would have been, given the 100-pound maximum loads possible via what is known as the 'tumpline economy' (from Contact era information for/from the Mexica or Aztecs). It also would have been far safer.

"The Late Classic Maya lowlands were a place of constant, brutal, endemic warfare. The known routes of communication between Yucatan and the eastern lowlands/western Belize would have traversed multiple different polities, likely hostile to foreigners and foreign merchants, especially those carrying very valuable cargo. The coastal sea route would also have been much faster. (Columbus ran into Maya traders sailing a 50-foot-long trading canoe in Cuba on his first voyage)," explains Ball.

Future work will focus on investigating whether different Maya sites had single or multiple palygorskite sources, and why such a small, modest center (Buenavista ) had such abundant access to this sacred pigment.

© 2025 Science X Network