Maya Blue: Unlocking the Mysteries of an Ancient Pigment

Cool article, and even cooler site IMO. Brings back memories of 20 years ago, when many sites looked similar. It probably looks radically ugly to the modern eye, but I kind of miss the goofiness of pages like this, down to the poem at the bottom (in Comic Sans, no less).

Chrome probably would have kicked up some sort of fuss about it, but I was almost hoping to see .swf as the file extension for the wheel GIF at the top. Good times.

Apparently someone has recreated it.

https://yucatantoday.com/en/blog/how-is-the-maya-blue-pigmen...

Related:

'Maya blue': The mystery dye recreated two centuries after it was lost - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42288864 - Dec 2024 (21 comments)

'Maya blue': The mystery dye recreated two centuries after it was lost - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42292443 - Dec 2024 (1 comment)

Egyptian blue was recently recreated using ancient methods:

https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2025/06/02/researchers-re...

They look chemically quite different: clay, palygorskite/sepiolite, and indigo for Mayan blue; silica, lime, copper, and an alkali for Egyptian blue.

For anyone interested in pigments/colors, the National Gallery recently started a podcast on the subject in YouTube, I enjoyed the Prussian Blue history episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK1GSvP6VYs&t=1992s

By chance I came across this after yesterday flying for the first time over the eastern edge of the Yucatan. The turqoise color of the water is otherworldly. I love that they draw the comparison, as this pigment really does resemble it!