According to Queensland University researcher Rosemary Goodall and her colleagues who have been working at the well-studied ancient Maya site of Copan in Honduras, the temples must have dazzled, literally. Goodall used infared technology to analyze paint shards. She found that tiny bit of mica were mixed with the paint.
“I discovered a green pigment and a mica pigment that would have had a lustrous effect,” Goodall, who was concentrating her research on the Rosalila Temple, reported. “I’m sure that when the sun hit it, it must have sparkled. It must have had the most amazing appearance.”
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SHOWN: Rosalila Temple replica at Copan Museum, taken December 1999.
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LINK: Study determines why Mayan temples dazzle
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