INGREDIENTS FOR "MAYA BLUE" PIGMENT WIDELY MINED

The ingredients of “Maya Blue," a pigment used by the Classic Maya, may have been widely mined, an archaeologist reports. It was previously suggested that the ingredients were traded within the Yucatán Peninsula, and mined only in Mexico.

Austin State University’s Leslie Cecil , however, has traced the pigment's chief ingredient to the Petén region of Guatemala, a significant location in the cultural heritage of the Maya.

"Geochemical analyses demonstrate that the Ixlu pigment has the traditional Maya Blue structure, but it was manufactured from clays in central Petén, Guatemala," he said. "If Maya Blue was being used in the southern Maya lowlands as it was in the northern Maya lowlands, then it should not seem too shocking that some southern lowland Maya (perhaps ritual specialists) may have learned the technology and specialized knowledge behind the manufacture of Maya Blue."

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