Journal
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 200-220Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/20548923.2020.1720377
Keywords
Monosaccharides; additive; binding medium; mortar; pigment
Categories
Funding
- Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO) [CTQ2014-53736-C3-1-P, CTQ2014-53736-C3-2-P]
- Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (ERDF) [CTQ2014-53736-C3-1-P, CTQ2014-53736-C3-2-P]
- MINECO [CTQ2017-85317-C2-1-P]
- ERDF [CTQ2017-85317-C2-1-P]
- Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI) [CTQ2017-85317-C2-1-P]
- Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad [BIA2014-53887-C2-2-P]
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A number of monosaccharides characteristic of plant gums were found in paint layers and preparation layers of samples of Maya mural paintings of 10 archaeological sites located in Campeche and Yucatan regions. This finding opens the question about the deliberate use of these organic polymers as additives for improving workability and mechanical properties in the preparation layer mortar and conferring cohesion to the pigments in the paint layer. The study performed by GC-MS has confirmed the presence, in significant amounts, of a series of monosaccharides, being glucose and mannose between the most abundantly found. Nevertheless, the low amount present in most of the samples hindered the quantification of the relative proportion of monosaccharides necessary for identifying the botanical species of the plant gum. According to the accepted methodology used by Maya artists for preparing painting materials, bark of trees containing plant gums was added to the slaked lime stored in pools and that should be consistent with the notable amounts of glucose, mannose and other monosaccharides forming the skeleton of hemicelluloses and cellulose found in most of the samples. Although organic matter can be present in paint samples exposed to the external environment in Mesoamerican region as result of the microbiological activity, marker compounds characteristic of products resulting from their metabolism were not found in the studied samples.
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