Concave Mirrors and Their Relationship with Tobacco Cigars in Ancient Mesoamerica

This article argues that ancient Maya concave mirrors were used to ignite tobacco cigarettes. Based on previous theoretical and experimental results from our group, which demonstrate the burning power of Mesoamerican concave mirrors, this article focuses on analyzing the possible objects that were used as the target for receiving concentrated solar radiation to ignite fire. We present an iconographic and ethnohistorical analysis that consistently identifies the tobacco cigarette as the best candidate, showing a significant correlation between cigarettes and mirrors. In this sense, the tobacco cigar is viewed as a pyrotechnological artifact devised as an efficient receptor of the concentrated solar radiation by concave mirrors in order to ignite fire. Experiments conducted with analog models of the archaeological mirrors physically confirm the plausibility of our proposal, reaffirming the consistency between the iconographic, ethnohistorical, and thermodynamic information. Thus, the cigarette/mirror pair is proposed as an inseparable instrument for igniting fire, perhaps used as a ritual display of the control that elites exerted over the power of the Sun and psychoactive substances within the cult of the Lord of the Smoking Mirror.