The Maya Blue pigment mystery

Record summary

The unusual durability of Maya Blue on ceramics, murals and ritual objects became a materials-science problem in twentieth-century research. Analysis eventually connected the pigment to indigo combined with a clay mineral, commonly palygorskite, with preparation conditions affecting its stability. Before that explanation, the color’s resistance was sometimes described in mystical or technologically lost terms. The lead matters for comparing laboratory reconstruction, environmental durability and indigenous technical knowledge, while recipes, sources and regional production practices were not necessarily uniform.