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Aztec lime plaster

28th Sep 2023

Display of Aztec building materials, Templo Mayor Museum

‘The lime plaster used [by the Aztecs] for floors and walls was a form of concrete whose production made use of several separate chemical reactions, and some examples remain as hard as modern concrete even after 500 years...’ (Smith 2003: 254). The Mexica, and the Maya before them, knew their onions when it came to constructing buildings! (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

‘Concrete, a mixture of sand and or gravel, lime, and water, is used in construction projects including buildings and roads. Because of the lime, concrete is more durable than adobe. The Maya are the first indigenous Americans to make concrete, inventing it independently of the Egyptians and the Romans... the Maya used concrete as mortar to adhere blocks to each other, and plaster or stucco (a thicker version of plaster) to cover stone or adobe surfaces in their masonry projects and in their art.
’One of the main ingredients in these building materials is lime (calcium oxide). Maya builders mixed dry powdered calcium and clay with water, sand, gravel, and/or crushed stone. They extracted the calcium oxide from limestone by first burning it on special piles of wood that had been stacked in a circle. More wood was placed on top until it resembled a cylindrical building. Constructing the fire in this manner prevented impurities from getting into the resulting calcium oxide’ (Keoke & Porterfield 2002: 68).

Centuries later, the Mexica (Aztecs) used mortar and concrete in the same way, learning directly from the Maya. Aztec builders added wooden frames, covered with concrete and mortar, to the tops of temple-pyramids and other important buildings, seemingly to make them appear taller.
Michael E. Smith, renowned American archaeologist with decades of experience of excavating and researching Aztec settlements, calls the technology involved in Aztec architecture and construction ‘impressive’ (2003: 254). He notes that ‘irrigation canals were able to cross rivers and ravines on tall aqueducts, and this technology was used on the canal that brought drinking water across the lake to Tenochtitlan from springs at Chapultepec on the lake shore’ (pic 2).

Sources/references:-
• Keoke, Emory Dean & Porterfield, Kay Marie (2002) Encylopedia of American Indian Contributions to the World, Facts on File Inc., New York
• Smith, Michael E. (2003) The Aztecs, 2nd. edition, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.

Picture sources/notes:-
• Main (display of Aztec building materials, Templo Mayor Museum, Mexico City, showing [L-R]: tezontle stone, basalt, andesite, mortar, wood, stucco) - photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Pic 1: image from the Florentine Codex (original in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence) scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994
• Pic 2: photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore.

Aztecs

Maya

Aztec lime plaster

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