This paper explores the technology that Mayan artisans used in the preparation of the lime renderings for mural painting. The Mayan mixed lime with some kind of organic material, which presents amino acids in its composition.
Mortars from 16 different archaeological sites were analyzed by several analytical methods: optical microscopy followed by specific staining tests over cross sections, gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The first results pointed out that the use of an organic additive in the lime plasters′ substrates of mural paintings was a wide spread technology used in the Maya area -with some variations depending on the site location and its chronology. This finding suggested that the addition of such material would probably modify the mechanical resistance of the lime plaster substrates.