Maya Blue was developed by the ancient Maya civilisation, possibly as early as 300 CE. Its extraordinary stability was discovered by modern scientists in the 1930s and its chemical structure was not fully explained until the 1990s. Objects coated with Maya Blue — thrown into the sacred cenote (natural well) at Chichen Itza as offerings to the rain god Chaac — survived 1,000 years underwater with full colour intact.

Sacred, eternal, and mysterious. For the Maya, this blue was specifically associated with sacrifice — objects were painted Maya Blue before being offered to the gods. The colour represented the sky, rain, and the boundary between the human world and the divine. Its extraordinary stability — as if the colour itself were immortal — may have reinforced its sacred associations.

The rediscovery of Maya Blue's formula has inspired materials scientists to develop new stable pigments using similar organic-inorganic composite principles. The Maya's sophisticated chemistry — producing the most stable organic pigment ever made from simple natural materials — has genuine implications for modern pigment research. NASA has investigated Maya Blue's stability properties for potential applications in spacecraft coatings.