Potty about tobacco: Nicotine traces in a Mayan pot confirm its use for storing tobacco

On the tobacco trail

The Kislak Collection housed at the US Library of Congress rose from relative anonymity in the scientific world to hit the headlines in January of this year when news was released of a fascinating find. The collection contains more than 4000 rare books, maps, documents, paintings and artefacts relating to the early history and culture of the Americas but all of the excitement was caused by one little pot no taller than your thumb.

The clay pot was excavated from a burial site in southern Campeche, Mexico, and was one of a series of about 150 Mayan pots housed at the Library of Congress. They could each fit easily into the hand and were embellished with various motifs on the outside, many associated with tobacco.

The pot in question dated to around 700 AD and was the only one that said "tobacco" on the side, in an inscription that read yo-'OTOT-ti 'u-MAY, which has been translated as "the home of his (or her or its) tobacco." It was this unique motif that prompted a pair of scientists in the US to take a further look.

"There are many others that are decorated with images of tobacco leaves or gods associated with smoking, such as God L," Jennifer Loughmiller-Newman from the University at Albany SUNY told spectroscopyNOW.com but none others with this particular inscription.

Working with Dmitri Zagorevski from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, they examined the dry residue inside the pot to see if it gave any clues about the ancient contents. In particular, had it once been used to store tobacco?

Nicotine confirms tobacco presence 1300 years ago

Scrapings from the pot were extracted separately with water and with an organic solvent mixture and both extracts were analysed by mass spectrometry. In the first instance, the duo used GC/MS with electron ionisation and assigned the peaks in the total ion chromatograms by library matching.

The characteristics of one particular peak matched those of nicotine, giving a strong indication of the presence of tobacco at some stage in the lifetime of the pot. In fact, this peak had a small shoulder which was attributed to the minor nicotine stereoisomer. The relative amounts of the two isomers were consistent with those of the naturally occurring compound in tobacco leaves.

The two extracts from the vessel were also combined and analysed by LC/MS with electrospray ionisation. This technique confirmed the presence of nicotine and also detected two nicotine oxides. The existence of all three compounds was unambiguously confirmed by tandem mass spectrometry in high resolution mode.

The nicotine oxides are natural degradation products of nicotine that can be formed by bacterial action, so their presence in the pot is also consistent with the storage of tobacco. But could they also have arrived by heating tobacco in the pots or from contamination by modern smokers? The researchers think not, for several reasons.

In the first place, there was no indication of cotinine in the pot. This compound is strongly associated with smoking and its absence would suggest that smoking contamination is not the source of the other tobacco-related compounds.

Secondly, the team has analysed about 50 other pots from this collection and none of them contained nicotine. Bearing in mind that the pots were excavated at the same time and stored under the same conditions, contamination of just one pot would be surprising.

In addition, the ratio of the two stereoisomers of nicotine matches that of nicotine in tobacco leaves. If the tobacco had been heated by smoking, this ratio would have changed, so it is unlikely that the pot was used as an ash tray or for heating tobacco in some way.

Mayan tobacco customs

This is only the second reported case where the contents of a Mayan vessel match the hieroglyphics on the outside of the container. In the other case, a pot marked with the symbol for cacao contained theobromine, confirming its use.

So, why would the Maya store tobacco in small pots like this? Archaeologists had suspected that the pots were used as snuff boxes and this study provides the first physical evidence to support this. It is believed that tobacco was also used to provide spiritual protection and healing properties.

This fits with the behaviour of the modern Maya, who live in Southern Mexico and Guatemala and use tobacco to treat certain bug bites, as well as smoking it in cigars and pipes and chewing it.

Loughmiller-Newman agrees. "The ancient Maya smoked large cigars (we know this from images) and probably used tobacco in much the same ways that their modern counterparts do, but unfortunately we have little evidence of those behaviors. There have been some proposals that this powdered tobacco was mixed with alcoholic liquids for enema consumption but there isn't any solid evidence of that. We do know that the Maya consumed alcohol and drugs through enemas, so it is possible that strong, potent tobacco powder was added."

In the meantime, there might be more news about the Mayan customs in the near future. Zagorevski declared "I was able to detect some lipids in several pots. These data are still to be analyzed and they may uncover what kind of animals Mayas consumed."

The views represented in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.