Ancient Maya snuff jar
Wed. February 1
Scientific American article and podcast featuring Classic Maya tobacco vessel.
Scientific American has released a podcast detailing the use of gas chromatography / mass spectrometry and high-performance liquid chromatography for identifying tobacco residue in Maya ceramics. The findings were originally published in the journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. The ceramics tested originated from Calakmul and date to around 700 AD. The only vessel out of the sample of fifty that was positively identified to have been a container for tobacco was also, conveniently, labeled as such with a glyph reading y-otoot ' u-may.