Painting: The Maya excel in the painting mainly in Ceramics, but the murals both in buildings and in caves, were also important to them, they use several vegetal as well as mineral colorants to perform their masterpieces as the brilliantly rendered murals at San Bartolo, that constitute the most elaborate mythological scenes known for the ancient Maya. The mural is approximately 2000 years old, with more than 40 feet of this spectacular painting exposed, we are given a unique glimpse into the ancient mythology of the Maya. Other early examples of Mural painting are found in La Sufricaya and Uaxactún. They also painted their Temples in red and white, as well as the monuments. Recent investigations in the well preserved Rosalía Temple in Copán, have proved that in some buildings, the paint was mixed with Mica to make the buildings glitter in the sun, being Guatemala the only known source of this mineral in the Maya area, but it was used only in a Katún ending celebration, not in the regular maintenance and repainting. The Murals in San Bartolo and the Tombs in Río Azul are exceptional painting examples, that contain a wide range of colors, including the Maya Blue.
The ancient Maya combined skills in organic chemistry and mineralogy to create an important technology – the first permanent organic pigment–. The unique color and stability of Maya Blue, the most durable Maya color, that only recently has beenAhau in Throne, Petén, late Classic, note that only the Maya Blue is well preserved Indigofera guatemalensis, source of the exquisite Maya Bluereproduced. The Maya blue pigment is a composite of organic and inorganic constituents, primarily indigo dyes derived from the leaves of añil (Indigofera suffruticosa or Indigofera guatemalensis) plants combined with palygorskite (Sepiolite), a natural clay, cooked at 100 oC, that makes it turn from blackish to its exquisite tone. Smaller trace amounts of other mineral additives have also been identified. Due to its attractive turquoise color and light fastness, Maya blue was widely used in mural paintings, sculptures, ceramics and codices.
The stucco was prepared with an organic adhesive from the local tree named Holol, mixed with burned limestone and Sascab, a natural occurring mineral that does not need to be burned, and in the outer layer a finer Limestone with Barita, that is finer that the Sascab.
The Maya words tz'ib or tz'ib'al refers to painting in general, including both imagery and writing. The practitioners of these crafts, called ah tz'ibob ('they who paint'), were both master calligraphers and painters, which signed their work. The large corpus of ancient Maya painting includes portraits and names of several ah tz'ibob, depicts them at work, and presents their patron deities. The Vase rollout show below is a very distinctive class named The Holmul Dancers. There is a lot of drawings and Graffiti found in Maya sites such as Tikal and Nakum, also in Caves, made by common people. The most typical colors found in the Caves are black and red. Visual inspection suggests that black was usually derived from charcoal, although other black pigments, like manganese may have been used. The red (usually an orange-red) comes from iron-rich clays found in the caves themselves, as well as groundInk pots in Ruler's throne hematite (a bright, deep red). Yellow and blue are rare, the former occurring at Cueva de las Pinturas in Guatemala. Maya caves also contain graffiti and positive and stenciled handprints and, more rarely, footprints, both positive and negative. Sculpted cave art constitutes the other major group. Rock carvings, or petroglyphs, are made by incising, abrading, and pecking, the most common techniques employed in the production of Maya cave sculpture. Another class of cave sculpture includes three-dimensional images modeled in crude clay, a rare and very fragile art form The bark paper was used since the early Classic to make books, of those none is well preserved, but 4 Post Classic codices survive today.