ancient times. Thank you.

I really do.

No time to read for comprehension now.

Thanks!

Thanks for sharing.

Mexico can continue to afford to maintain, protect and secure this site. With all their on-going budget issues and now two big natural disasters, it may be difficult.

Also wonder if this or any of their other archaeological sites were damaged by the two recent quakes. Thanks for posting the article!

Lifetime subscription to National Geographic and their History magazine - and it terrifies as well as fascinates.

Don't they evaporate?

And the small amount lost could be measured with sophisticated equipment. That is, if you knew how much was there to start with.

1800 years slow?

Maybe it's fed by an underground mercury vein? If there is such a thing.

All bets are off if you apply heat.

There is free mercury parked in a creek near me. It was totally cleaned out during California's gold rush, but it has started accumulating again, albeit very slowly.

Happy hunting; a hundred and fifty years ago, they were retrieving it with spoons, today they are reporting pin head sized beads.

Sometimes quicksilver ain't so quick.

Don't handle mercury with bare unprotected hands. Also breathing mercury vapors would be dangerous.
I'm not a scientist but I do know that mercury causes bloodclots in humans.

It would be interesting to find out if the ancient Aztecs knew this. I'd guess they found out the hard way.

It is also used in mercury diffusion pumps, which boil and recondense mercury under vacuum. These are good down to about 1 micron of pressure, which is approximately the vapor pressure of Hg at room temps.

but there is some offgasing, especially if they'd been in the presence of heat from torches. The people who put them there likely died young and crazy.

The miners extracting the ore experienced little effect, as well as the artisans handling the mercury in the cave. There are health risks associated with liquid mercury, but it is off the chart in the gas form.

which is where "mad as a hatter" came from, mercury was used heavily in the manufacture of hats for men.

They also used mercury to try to treat the lesions of syphilis, which is why we know Henry VIII didn't have that one, his physicians didn't order any of it during his reign.

As for the syphilis stuff, I find it interesting that mercury poisoning mirrors some of the symptoms of advanced cases of syphilis.

Mercury was used in interior latex paint through 1980, which might explains why most painters I encountered were crazy. I always assumed it was because of the solvents they used, but I'm having to rethink it a bit. The early latex paints were not good for kids, but I'm wondering if it bent the painters who were exposed and absorbed it through their skin everyday.

and I remember people with tertiary syphilis who hadn't been treated with anything until they went bonkers and somebody did a Wasserman and found out why. The lucky ones were on a happy drunk. Most of them were unlucky and I wouldn't wish that particular variety of organic mental illlness on anyone. A few had been lobotomized in the 50s, and while it made their behavior easier to cope with, it robbed them of nearly everything they once were.

Mercury might have added to the mental illness but it wasn't the cause.

I have been to the Sun and the Moon pyramids, it was a wonderful place to visit. This sounds incredible.

I went to Copan in Honduras and saw some amazing things there.

I love that we are still discovering new places left by the ancients. This one sounds particularly interesting. Lakes of mercury and pyrite to show stars and firelight. Just wow.

China's first Emperor's (Qin Shi Huang) tomb although unopened is described in just such a manner. Miniature mountains with lakes of mercury and gems on the tomb's ceiling to give the illusion of glittering stars.

Makes one wonder what heights the cultures of Mesoamerica actually reached. Most of the written records were destroyed by Spanish priests, so we'll never know.

and didn't realize all of that was under the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon but it makes sense. And as a note, that site is about 7000 ft in elevation (like nearby Mexico City) and I expect many tourists don't realize how rarefied the air is. As it was, I was amazed at the huge 5-6' tall aloes that were growing nearby (at least when we were there).

because so many decorative features of the city wee found both bashed apart and burned. They think there was likely either a revolution by people sick of being bled dry by the priesthood or conquest from outside. The end was violent and the city itself was pretty much destroyed. Either the priesthood were captured, killed, or on the unemployment line.

An alternative theory is that they all went wacky from inhaling mercury vapors and immolated themselves.