TY - JOUR A1 - Wiedemann, H. G. A1 - Brzezinka, Klaus-Werner A1 - Witke, Klaus A1 - Lamprecht, I. T1 - Thermal and Raman-spectroscopic analysis of Maya Blue carrying artefacts, especially fragment IV of the Codex Huamantla N2 - Maya Blue, a pigment composed of very low concentrations of natural indigo and the clay mineral palygorskite, is one of the most brilliant blue dyes, intensively used for more than 2000 years in Mesoamerica. It is extremely stable against environmental attacks and was applied by the Indians for inside and outside mural paintings, ceramics, textiles and for colouring their famous codices. In the present paper it was studied as a powder (compared with modern synthetic indigo) and as colour on tissues, a Maya clay head, and fragment IV of the famous Codex Huamantla. Investigations using Raman spectroscopy in the visible and near-infrared range showed a high degree of correspondence among all Maya Blue-carrying samples and a good agreement with synthetic indigo. Additional spectral lines may be explained by a transformation of the planar indigo molecule when binding to the palygorskite lattice. Thermal investigations of the original “amatl” paper of the codex and of recent paper from fig-trees showed a high similarity and thus proved that this tree was chosen for paper making by Mayas, Aztecs and other Indian tribes. This was also true for the codex. KW - Art KW - Codices KW - Differential scanning calorimetry KW - Mesoamerica KW - Raman spectroscopy KW - Thermogravimetry PY - 2007 SN - 0040-6031 SN - 1872-762X VL - 456 IS - 1 SP - 56 EP - 63 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-14794 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -