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About this book
One of the great technological achievements of the ancient Maya, Maya Blue is one the world's most unusual ancient pigments. In Maya Blue, Dean E. Arnold offers a comprehensive history of its study for almost a century, filled with personal anecdotes drawn from his decades of work uncovering the Maya knowledge of its constituents, its ancient sources, and how it was made—including previously unknown methods. The book presents a fresh holistic perspective that documents these discoveries and the scientific process that led to them and provides testable hypotheses about how the pigment and the technology used to make it moved throughout Mesoamerica.
Combining the organic dye indigo and the inorganic clay mineral palygorskite in a highly stable chemical hybrid that, unlike indigo, resists attacks by acids, alkalines, and organic solvents and endures without fading, Maya Blue has a rich blue color that has survived for centuries in one of the world's harshest climates. First used at the site of Calakmul in the tropical forest of southern Mexico during the Late Preclassic period, the Maya's abiding hue diffused across Mesoamerica over a period of 1,700 years. It appears on Maya pottery, sculpture, murals, and codices and carries multiple meanings, standing as a symbol for cultural cornerstones such as sacrifice and the rain god Chaak. It was discovered in 1931 at Chichén Itzá, and its composition was a mystery for more than three decades, then questions about its source, how and why it achieved such stability, and how and why the Maya made the pigment persisted even longer.
In Maya Blue, Arnold summarizes ethnographic, archaeological, chemical, and material science research over the last century from an anthropological perspective. This thorough, engaging, and accessible book chronicles the history of this pigment as no work has done before.
Combining the organic dye indigo and the inorganic clay mineral palygorskite in a highly stable chemical hybrid that, unlike indigo, resists attacks by acids, alkalines, and organic solvents and endures without fading, Maya Blue has a rich blue color that has survived for centuries in one of the world's harshest climates. First used at the site of Calakmul in the tropical forest of southern Mexico during the Late Preclassic period, the Maya's abiding hue diffused across Mesoamerica over a period of 1,700 years. It appears on Maya pottery, sculpture, murals, and codices and carries multiple meanings, standing as a symbol for cultural cornerstones such as sacrifice and the rain god Chaak. It was discovered in 1931 at Chichén Itzá, and its composition was a mystery for more than three decades, then questions about its source, how and why it achieved such stability, and how and why the Maya made the pigment persisted even longer.
In Maya Blue, Arnold summarizes ethnographic, archaeological, chemical, and material science research over the last century from an anthropological perspective. This thorough, engaging, and accessible book chronicles the history of this pigment as no work has done before.
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Yes, you can access Maya Blue by Dean E. Arnold in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Art General. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Publisher
University Press of ColoradoYear
2024Print ISBN
9781646427833, 9781646426676eBook ISBN
9781646426683Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Background
- 3. Why Is Maya Blue Unique?
- 4. Palygorskite and Maya Indigenous Knowledge
- 5. Sources of Palygorskite: Maya Cultural Heritage
- 6. Other Sources of Palygorskite
- 7. Maya Blue and Indigo
- 8. Identifying Ancient Sources of Palygorskite Used in Maya Blue
- 9. How Was Maya Blue Made?
- 10. Did the Maya Use Other Methods to Create Maya Blue?
- 11. How Did Maya Blue Diffuse through Mesoamerica?
- 12. Future Research
- Notes
- References Cited
- Index