Sascab is "decomposed limestone" used as an engineering and building material in ancient Mesoamerica. Media:Example. ... Mesoamerica is the region extending from central Mexico south to the northwestern border of Costa Rica that gave rise to a group of stratified, culturally related agrarian civilizations spanning an approximately 3,000-year period before the European discovery of the New World by Columbus. ...
It was used in place of lime in some applications, but had the advantage of being useable in more or less the form in which it was quarried, without the need for high temperature processing. Lime has several meanings: Agricultural lime - a mineral soil additive Calcium oxide (also quicklime) - a chemical compound Calcium hydroxide (also slaked lime) - a chemical compound Lime (fruit) - a Citrus tree with a green fruit similar to a lemon, and the fruit of that tree. ...
Littmann, E. R. 'Ancient Mesoamerican mortars, plasters, and stuccos: the composition and origin of sascab' in THOMPSON, RAYMOND H. ED. American Antiquity. Vol. XXIV Number 2 October 1958. Society for American Archaeology.
In the northern lowlands the most similar type of limestone is more often known as sascab tunich or scaboso and there, in Campeche and Yucatan, the word tzaal designates a different variety of limestone.
Sascab is a naturally occurring unconsolidated calcium carbonate material that is in some ways related to tzaal.
Usually any such material is designated as sascab by archaeologists without distinction because the two are visually similar in excavated architecture.
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