[Aztlan] Maya Blue Discovery

[michael ruggeri]

Listeros,

In a follow up to the discovery of the use of "palygorskite" for  
making Maya Blue, Spanish researchers have traced the route of the  
Maya to its source in the Yucatan. They analyzed various clays in the  
Yucatan. They found the clay in several locations in the Yucatan  
within 40 km of Uxmal. Their article is posted in Archaeometry Journal.

Science Daily has the story here;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090420085049.htm

A tiny URL;
http://tinyurl.com/cwchpr

Here is the earlier story that proved palygorskite was used in Maya  
Blue.

Secrets of Maya Blue Revealed

The journal Antiquity has in its online version today that Dean Arnold  
and a team from Wheaton College and the Field Museum have unraveled  
the mystery of Maya Blue. They believe the Maya cooked the pigment in  
ceramic bowls over burning incense. Arnold has studied a small bowl  
from the cenote at Chichen Itza that the Field Museum has held for  
decades. The bowl contains traces of polygorskite, a clay mineral,  
indigo and copal. The invention of Maya Blue took place in 500 CE and  
required the fusing of the three elements over a slow, low heat  
provided by copal incense in ceramic bowls.
When Thompson dredged the large cenote at Chichen Itza, he found a 14  
foot layer of blue silt at the bottom but no one studied its  
significance. Now it appears Maya Blue was made at the edge of the  
cenote during priestly rituals.  Now the team is studying other  
objects from the Sacred Cenote in the Field collection to find out the  
exact portion of indigo that was used.
This is the value of having artifacts sitting in museum collections  
for a long time and at some point, technology is sufficient that major  
breakthroughs can be made from unused artifacts.
Elizabeth Graham of the Institute of Archaeology at University  
College, London said that Dean Arnold is probably the main person in  
the world today in the field of Maya ceramics and production and this  
proves it.

The Santa Barbara News Press has the story here;
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=NATIONAL&ID=565251819938644016
(A live link to this article can be found on my Maya News page below)

Mike Ruggeri

Mike Ruggeri's Maya Archaeology News and Links
http://tinyurl.com/atpsd9