‘Maya blue’: The mystery dye recreated two centuries after it was lost

A ceramicist in Mexico retraces his Maya roots to recreate a long-lost pre-Hispanic pigment for the first time in more than two centuries.

Dzan, Mexico – Surrounded by dense jungle and beneath intertwining canopies of towering trees, Luis May Ku, 49, trudges ahead through shoulder-height bushes searching for a rare plant. The oppressive 40-degree Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) heat dulls the senses, and the air, thick with humidity, clings to our skin, causing beads of sweat to form and trickle down.

After scouring the thickets, May, an Indigenous Maya ceramicist, stumbles upon a shrub similar in shape and texture to others around him, but insists this one is special. He touches the soft, sprawling leaves and tells me it is wild ch’oj (“indigo plant” in Mayan, anil in Spanish) – or Indigofera suffruticosa – which is a key ingredient to create the revered Maya blue pigment.

“It took years before I found it – indigo – and most people from Yucatan believed it to be extinct on the peninsula,” May says with a pensive look, lifting his sombrero made from interwoven huano palm leaves to wipe his brow with the back of his hand.

“Chokoj (hot)!” I say to him in my limited command of Mayan as we crouch behind the metre and a half (5-foot) high ch’oj bush to escape the relentless, blistering sun. He turns to me with kind eyes and offers me water from his bottle.

“The Yucatan Peninsula is going through its worst drought in decades,” he says. “Let’s rest, and I’ll tell you how I recreated Maya blue.”