Prediction of the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar in December 2012 is considered a mistake of interpreters or a clever Indian joke. However, it is from this time point physicists find, for example, the change in the constant characteristics of the proton. It is easy to write off the inexplicable phenomenon to imperfect measurement technology, but one wants mystery. Especially since an amazing coincidence opened up - it was in the final year of the Mayan calendar that the world finally unraveled the secret of the unclouded azure of their religious artifacts.
The main ingredient of the ancient recipe turned out to be the common, although relatively rare, clay mineral palygorskite, which was first discovered near Perm by Russian geologists in the 1860s.
It has long been known that the pre-Columbian civilization of Mesoamerica made extensive use of indigo dyes (from plants of the genus Indigofera). In the second half of the 20th century they began to coat the classic American jeans. It is true that denim sheds easily and gives abrasions. That''s because it lacks an important ingredient. In order to make the paint more resistant to prolonged physical and chemical exposure, the Indians mixed the organic dye indigo with palygorskite powder. As a result of heating, the mixture acquired the properties of timelessness.
One of the 10 major archaeological discoveries of 2008 was the confirmed hypothesis that the Maya used such a mixture in their rituals. In 2012, researchers at Columbia University found in the north of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico the remains of mines where at the dawn of our era the Indians extracted palygorskite for their religious cults. The mystery of the ancient civilization was solved, the Mayan calendar ended its countdown at the appointed time.
The mining engineers Dmitry Planer and Fyodor Savchenkov hardly imagined they would write their names in the history of world religions when they described the new mineral in 1860-61. Otherwise, they would not have come up with such a prosaic name for it - from the name of the Palygorsk railroad section in the Perm province.
The people call Palygorskite, an aqueous magnesium aluminosilicate, simultaneously a mountain skin, mountain paper, mountain cork, mountain tree, and mountain wool. In fact, this layered mineral that is very flexible when wet can be found in different incarnations, depending on one's luck. It can appear, for example, as a bark on a cobblestone or a decrepit folio.
"In the cracks of the hard volcanic rock we found sheets of natural stone cardboard. Washed out by surface waters, gentle fibers stretched threads of this unusual Crimean mineral. We collected it in large quantities," describes the palygorskite found near Simferopol by the famous domestic mineralogist Alexander Fersman.
Today palygorskite is mainly used as an environmentally friendly raw material in the manufacture of building heaters and filters for cleaning oil, machine oil, fats, wine and juices. It is also used as a filler in paints and varnishes. This area of application was discovered even before the Mayan recipe was unraveled. However, no metaphysical properties were found in palygorskite paints. Apparently, there is still some secret component to be added to the composition of the Indian azure, or to our understanding of its meaning.
