Made around 700 A.D. in the region of the Mirador Basin, in Southern Campeche, Mexico, during the Classic Mayan period, the two-and-a-half-inch wide and high clay vessel was a "house of tobacco," as indicated by hieroglyphic texts. They read: “y-otoot ’u-may,” (“the home of its/his/her tobacco,”) .
"This is only the second case in which residue analysis shows a Mayan vessel to have had the same content as indicated by hieroglyphics," Jennifer Loughmiller-Newman, from the University at Albany in New York, told Discovery News.
The last discovery occurred more than 20 years ago and involved a vessel containing cacao.
Loughmiller-Newman and Dmitri Zagorevski from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York analyzed residues from more than 50 various Mayan vessels, mainly from the Kislak collection of the Library of Congress.
"None of them, as of now, have shown any traces of nicotine or other alkaloids," the researchers wrote in the journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry.
Indeed, several issues, such as bacteria, contamination, and the fact that the usage of containers changed over time, often limit the success of chemical analysis on ancient residues.
Nevertheless, Loughmiller-Newman and Zagorevski were able to find the chemical fingerprint of tobacco in the codex-style flask.
The identification was performed by using two analytical chemistry tecniques -- gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS) and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LCMS).
"Both methods resulted in the positive identification of nicotine," said the researchers.
In addition, three oxidation products of nicotine, indicating natural processes of bacterial degradation, were discovered.
None of the nicotine byproducts associated with the smoking of tobacco was detected, likely ruling out the use of the vessel as an ash tray.
"The tobacco found in that container was probably not used for smoking. It was likely a powered product," Loughmiller-Newman said.
According to the researcher, the tobacco known to the ancient Mayas "was far stronger than any plant grown today and possibly strong enough to be hallucinogenic."
Likely mixed with lime, the powered tobacco from the vessel would have been chewed, consumed as snuff or added to alcohol for stronger drinks.
Read more at Discovery News
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