Article Molecular and X-ray Spectroscopies for Noninvasive Characterization of Mayan Green Stones from Bonampak, Chiapas Valentina Aguilar-Melo 1 , Alejandro Mitrani 1 , Edgar Casanova-Gonzalez 2 , Mayra D. Manrique-Ortega 1 , Griselda Pe ´ rez-Ireta 1 , Jose ´ Luis Ruvalcaba-Sil 1 , Alejandro Tovalin-Ahumada 3 , Julia Leticia Moscoso-Rinco ´n 3 , Alejandro Seshen ˜ a-Herna ´ndez 4 , and Josuhe ´ Lozada-Toledo 5 Abstract A burial and a rich offering were found under Room 2 in the Murals Building, Bonampak, a Mayan archaeological site situated in Chiapas, Mexico. This burial may be related with the creation of the famous mural paintings. A rich set of jewelry made of green stones was among the different objects found. Green stones have great importance in Mesoamerican cultures, those composed of jadeite being the most appreciated. To characterize the green stones, different spectroscopic techniques were used in a complementary way: Raman and infrared spectroscopies (FT-IR) were used for global mineralogical analysis, while X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) were applied simultaneously in situ on the artifacts that were not successfully identified by these molecular techniques. In addition, XRF was used to contrasts the elemental information from pieces composed of pyroxenes that may be related to the raw sources of jade in Guatemala. The main minerals identified within the beads and earrings were jadeite with omphacite and jadeite with albite; to a minor extent, quartz, and serpentine. In this paper, the main features of the molecular and X-ray techniques are compared in order to determine the advantages and limitations of these spectroscopies for mineral identification. With this combination of techniques, it was possible to undertake a suitable characterization of the analyzed objects. This paper focuses on the XRD–XRF combined analysis for in situ noninvasive characterization. Keywords Green stones, Bonampak, spectroscopic analysis, X-ray diffraction–X-ray fluorescence, XRD–XRF, in situ, noninvasive Date received: 18 January 2019; accepted: 26 March 2019 Introduction Green stones were of great importance for Mesoamerican cultures, since their color is associated with life and fertility. 1 Among them, jade was the most important, mainly due to its optical characteristics, hardness, and scarcity. Jadeite jade is a heterogeneous stone, with jadeite as the major composite, and minerals such as diopside, albite, augite, kosmochlor, and omphacite, among others, as minor phases. 2 X-ray diffraction (XRD) is an outstanding method in the characterization of crystalline materials; powder XRD can identify the composition of polycrystalline materials, that contain one or more phases if present over 3–5%. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and XRD can be applied simultaneously, 1 Instituto de Fı ´sica, Universidad Nacional Auto ´noma de Me ´xico, Mexico City, Mexico 2 CONACyT- Instituto de Fı ´sica, Universidad Nacional Auto ´ noma de Me ´xico, Mexico City, Mexico 3 Centro INAH Chiapas, Instituto Nacional de Antropologı ´a e Historia, Chiapas, Mexico 4 Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas, Facultad de Humanidades, Chiapas, Mexico 5 Direccio ´n de Estudios Arqueolo ´gicos, Instituto Nacional de Antropologı ´a e Historia, Mexico Corresponding author: Jose ´ Luis Ruvalcaba-Sil, Instituto de Fı ´sica, Universidad Nacional Auto ´ noma de Me ´xico, Avenida Universidad 3000, Mexico City, Mexico City, 04510, Mexico. Email: sil@fisica.unam.mx Applied Spectroscopy 0(0) 1–13 ! The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0003702819848478 journals.sagepub.com/home/asp