The colour survives in the work of 17th Century Spanish colonial painters, a symbol of the wealth that ultimately doomed the Maya, writes Devon Van Houten Maldonado.

BBC记者Devon Van Houten Maldonado写道，这种得以于17世纪西班牙殖民画家的作品中幸存下来的颜色，是最终毁灭了玛雅人的财富的一种象征。

In 17th Century Europe, when Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Peter Paul Rubens painted their famous masterworks, ultramarine blue pigment made from the semi-precious lapis lazuli stone was mined far away in Afghanistan and cost more than its weight in gold. Only the most illustrious painters were allowed to use the costly material, while lesser artists were forced to use duller colours that faded under the sun. It wasn’t until the industrial revolution in the 19th Century that a synthetic alternative was invented, and true ultramarine blue finally became widely available.

17世纪的欧洲，当米开朗基罗和鲁本斯创作他们的传世杰作时，远在阿富汗的某处正在进行着对珍贵青金石的开采，这种材料被用于制作群青色颜料，而其克价超过了黄金的价格。只有最杰出的画家才被允许使用昂贵的材料，而不起眼的小画家们则被迫使用那些会在阳光照射下褪色的较暗淡的颜料。直到19世纪的工业革命时发明了一种人工合成替代品，才使得群青能被广泛的使用。

Across the Atlantic Ocean, colonial Baroque works created by artists like José Juárez, Baltasar de Echave Ibia and Cristóbal de Villalpando in early 17th Century Mexico – New Spain – were full of this beautiful blue. How could this be? Lapis lazuli was even rarer in the New World. It wasn’t until the middle of the 20th Century that archaeologists discovered the Maya had invented a resilient and brilliant blue, centuries before their land was colonised and their resources exploited. 

跨越大西洋，17世纪初墨西哥-新西班牙画家José Juárez、Baltasar de Echave Ibia和Cristóbal de Villalpando等艺术家所创作的殖民时期巴洛克作品大量使用了这种美丽的蓝色。这怎么可能呢？毕竟青金石在新大陆更为罕见。直到20世纪中叶，考古学家才发现玛雅人在他们的土地被殖民和资源开采之前的几个世纪就发明了一种稳定且色彩靓丽的蓝色。

The ultramarine blue procured from lapis lazuli in Europe was not only incredibly expensive, but also extremely laborious to make. In Europe, blue was reserved for the most important subject matter. Rubens' Adoration of the Magi – the version that hangs in the Museo del Prado in Madrid and which he worked on for over 20 years – is an example. The colour was primarily used to paint the robes of the Virgin Mary, and later extended to include other royalty and holy figures. In Mexico, on the other hand, blue was used to paint altogether less holy and everyday subjects.

从欧洲的青金石得到的群青色不仅非常昂贵，而且制作流程繁杂。在欧洲，蓝色被用于表现最重要的主题。鲁本斯版本的Adoration of the Magi就是一个例子，他在这幅挂在马德里普拉多博物馆的作品花费了20多年。蓝色主要被用来绘制圣母玛利亚的长袍，后来又被用于描绘皇室人员和圣人形象。而在墨西哥，蓝色则可在不那么神圣的更日常的主题中看到。

Archaeologists studying pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican ruins were surprised by the discovery of blue murals in the Maya Riviera, modern day Mexico and Guatemala, from as early as 300 AD, perhaps the most famous being the murals at the temple of Chichén Itzá (created around 450 AD). The colour had a special ceremonial significance for the Maya. They covered sacrificial victims and the altars on which they were offered in a brilliant blue paint, writes Diego de Landa Calderón, a bishop in colonial Mexico during the 16th Century, in his first-hand account.

研究前西班牙裔中美洲遗址的考古学家对早在公元300年在玛雅Riviera，现代墨西哥和Guatemala发现的蓝色壁画感到惊讶，其中最著名的可能是位于Chichén Itzá的壁画（创作于公元450年左右）。这种颜色对玛雅人来说具有特殊的仪式意义。16世纪墨西哥殖民地主教Diego de Landa Calderón在打的第一手资料中写道，他们用明亮的蓝色颜料涂满了用于献祭的人和祭坛。

The añil plant

Archaeologists were puzzled by the resilience of the blue in the murals. The añil plant, part of the indigo family, was widely available in the region but was mostly used for dyes rather than paint. Indigo was quick to fade in the sunlight and natural elements, so experts mused that the Maya couldn’t have used the same widely available dye to paint the murals. It wasn’t until the late 1960s that the source of Maya blue’s resilience through the centuries was discovered: a rare clay called attapulgite, which was mixed with the dye from the añil plant. During colonisation native materials like Maya blue and cochineal were exploited along with every other resource of the land and its people in the New World. These colours, which supposedly represented the wealth of the Maya empire, would stand as a symbol of all that would be plundered.

考古学家困惑于壁画中蓝色颜料的耐久度。植物añil，indigo家族的一部分，在这个地区被广泛使用，但是主要是用于染料而不是涂料。靛蓝色素会在阳光和自然环境中快速褪色，所以专家们认为玛雅人不可能用这种材料来广泛制作壁画。直到20世纪60年代末，人们才发现了玛雅蓝几个世纪以来依旧能保持住其颜色的秘密：一种名为attapulgite的稀有黏土，玛雅人把它和añil制成的染料混合在了一起。在殖民时期，玛雅蓝和胭脂虫等本土材料与新大陆的土地和人民等其他资源一起被开采。这种颜色被认为是代表了玛雅帝国财富的颜色，也成为了被掠夺的象征。