The color blue had strong significance throughout Mesoamerica, and was often explicitly linked to the Gods in general, or specific Gods.

Blue was also commonly assigned to a direction, depending on the culture. The Aztecs associated it with the South, while the Maya associated it with a fifth direction, the Center.

Maya blue is a bright, lightfast, non-fugitive pigment used in Maya art, as well as to paint sacrificial objects and people. When first excavated in 1904, a 14-foot thick deposit of blue pigment was found at the bottom of the Sacred Well at Chichen Itza for instance, from hundreds of years of sacrifices being deposited into the cenote. It was only very recently that scientists and researchers have been able to figure out how it was likely made:¹⁾

Scientists have long puzzled over how the ancient people created such a vivid, durable, fade-resistant pigment. They knew it contained two substances — extract from the leaves of the indigo plant and a clay mineral called palygorskite. […]

The copal incense may have been the binding agent that allowed the color to stay true for so long, Feinman said.

Copal is an incense sacred to the entire region.