Remarkable discovery: Czech archeologists unearth 3,000-year-old Mayan city

[Judi Lynn]

5. Wow, I found an article which sheds some light on Mayan colors!

Colors are deeply embedded in Mayan culture.

To the Maya priests and kings two thousand years ago, each of the world directions had its own color. Color was used to paint murals and entire pyramids and palaces: most Maya buildings were painted red. So to study Mayan archaeology, ethnography and especially most artifacts, you run into color pretty quickly. The Maya colored even their cacao: it was not chocolate color but red, from achiote. And pre-Columbian chocolate drink was not as sweet as ours, but rather bitter, especially when seasoned with chile!

So if you study Mayan anthropology, or archaeology, sooner or later you will run into colors. What is also impressive is that colors on Maya murals and pottery last thousands of years. Yet modern colors on inkjet printers, if dye inks, the colors last only a few months in the sun and only a few years inside. Even pigmented inkjet colors last at most three to five years outside. The claims of 200 year longevity is an advertising ploy: not many modern chemical colors last more than a few years on inkjet materials. The 200 year longevity is if kept inside a dark chamber that is purified from most of the common pollutants that float around in our modern world today.

So many pre-Columbian colorants used by the Maya, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Classic Veracruz, Toltec, and Aztec last longer than modern chemical colors.

Colorants for the Classic Maya by what was being colored:

Food coloring from plant materials: the best example is achiote

Food coloring from animal materials (insects): Cochineal

Colorants from seashells: several species of Pacific Ocean shells

Colorants from tree sap: Croton

Colorants from trees: Palo de Brazil, Palo de Campeche, añil, Indigofera suffruticosa, chooj; mira, Chlorophora tinctoria; Pericon, Tagets lucida

Colorants for Maya architecture: special kinds of clay and other colorants

Colorants for Maya murals: diverse clays, minerals

Colorants for the famous “Maya blue:” palygorskite

This is not intended to be a complete list, but is a start.

More:
https://www.maya-archaeology.org/colors-in-mayan-culture/mayan-anthropology-ethnography-archaeology-art-history-iconography-epigraphy-ethnobotany/mayancolorscolorantspigmentsdyesgeologyclaysmineralsmuralspotteryceramicspaintingethnohistory.php