Maya Blue Paint

Maya blue: a clay-organic pigment?

Maya Blue, a pigment used by the Mayas in Yucatan, is remarkably stable: the color is not destroyed by hot concentrated mineral acids or by heating to about 250 degrees C. The principal constituent is the colorless mineral attapulgite. It is proposed that the pigment is an adsorption complex of attapulgite and natural indigo; a synthetic equivalent may be prepared from attapulgite and either in...

Visualizing Maya

Pervasive animation in games, animation, films, numerous websites and stand-alone information interfaces, means that software increasingly influences how we imagine fictions, display information and interact with a digitally mediated world. Given its centrality in creating image, how can a 3D software package be made visible beyond the images seen in cinema, in games, commercials and visualizat...

Role of water on formation and structural features of Maya blue

The Maya blue (MB) is an artificial pigment created between 500-800 A.D. and used in murals, pottery and sculptures by Mayas and other people in Mesoamerica. MB is resistant to age, acid, weathering, biodegradation and even modern chemical solvents, but the chemical reasons behind the resistance to chemical aggressions are still under debate. Water plays a fundamental role in the interactions b...

Origins of the Maya Forest Garden: Maya Resource Management

The Maya Forest: destroyed or cultivated by the ancient Maya?

B oth academic and popular perceptions concerning the relationship between the Maya (ancient and modern) and the Maya Forest in which their culture developed and persisted formore than three millennia are varied and continuously subject to change (1). The analysis of a sediment core from a pond located near the ancient Maya city of Copan, Honduras, interpreted byMcNeil et al. (2) in this issue ...