How On Earth Did Ancient Civilisations Get MERCURY?

Transcript
0:00 · [Music]
0:00 · Mercury is the only metallic element in
0:02 · existence that's a liquid at room
0:04 · temperature and it's absolutely
0:06 · mesmerizing to look at so I'm always
0:09 · left feeling Amazed by the fact that
0:11 · humans actually had access to this stuff
0:14 · thousands of years ago for instance
0:17 · vials of mercury have been found in
0:19 · ancient Egyptian tombs that are around 3
0:21 · and a 12,000 years old similarly
0:25 · excavation of the ancient miso American
0:27 · city of teoto wakan has revealed some
0:30 · fascinating discoveries archaeologists
0:32 · have Unearthed a chamber containing
0:34 · thousands of treasures which had
0:36 · remained undisturbed for 18800 years not
0:40 · only that but they discovered a
0:42 · miniature mountainous landscape that had
0:43 · been constructed which had pools of
0:46 · liquid mercury in some of the tiny
0:48 · valleys to represent Lakes but here's my
0:51 · favorite story about mercury in the
0:53 · ancient
0:55 · world in the 3dr century BC China
0:58 · consisted of various Waring kingdoms
1:01 · chin XI hang was the king of the chin
1:04 · States and after years of conflict he
1:07 · successfully conquered all of the other
1:09 · states and became the first ever emperor
1:12 · of a unified China towards the end of
1:15 · his life he became obsessed with finding
1:17 · an Elixir that would Grant him
1:19 · immortality and he would regularly drink
1:22 · Mercury thinking that it contained
1:24 · magical properties what he didn't know
1:27 · was that mercury is actually poisonous
1:29 · and long-term ingestion can be extremely
1:32 · detrimental to your health in the year
1:34 · 210 BC at the age of 49 he died
1:39 · ironically his quest of immortality was
1:42 · probably the very thing that cut his
1:44 · life short but that's not the end of the
1:47 · story he was put to rest in perhaps the
1:50 · most impressive mosum ever built much of
1:54 · what we know about it comes from an
1:56 · ancient historian C makan who wrote
1:59 · about the the mosum about 2 centuries
2:02 · after its
2:03 · construction according to him it took a
2:05 · total of 700,000 men almost four decades
2:09 · to build he described how it would have
2:12 · been considered a serious breach if the
2:14 · Craftsman who constructed the mechanical
2:16 · devices and knew of its Treasures were
2:18 · to divulge those secrets so after the
2:22 · funeral ceremonies were completed and
2:24 · the treasures were hidden away the inner
2:26 · passageway was blocked and the outer
2:28 · gate was lowered immediately trapping
2:31 · all the workers and Craftsmen inside so
2:33 · that no one could Escape trees were then
2:36 · planted on the tomb Mound and nowadays
2:38 · it's easy to mistake it as Just Another
2:40 · Hill in the
2:42 · landscape surrounding the tomb are
2:44 · thousands of lifelike intricately
2:46 · sculpted Warriors archers chariots and
2:49 · horses now known as the Terracotta Army
2:53 · the mosum itself was modeled on the
2:55 · layout of siyang the capital of the Chin
2:58 · Dynasty the tomb was filled with rare
3:01 · artifacts and Priceless treasure and
3:04 · allegedly continuously flowing all
3:07 · around this recreated city were 100
3:10 · Rivers of pure
3:12 · Mercury now if it's true that's a lot of
3:16 · mercury the thing is nobody knows for
3:18 · sure if it's true or not archaeologists
3:21 · have excavated the surrounding areas of
3:23 · the Tomb and famously discovered the
3:25 · guarding terra cotta Army as well as
3:28 · mass Graves of some of the workers
3:30 · but nobody has entered the tomb
3:33 · itself this is partly due to a strong
3:35 · desire to minimize any destruction of
3:37 · the Tomb and with the associated
3:39 · difficulties in Excavating it but it's
3:43 · also due to Legends of booby traps such
3:45 · as crossbows and arrows primed to shoot
3:48 · at anyone who attempts to enter the tomb
3:51 · from its description it sounds like the
3:52 · only person who could survive would be
3:54 · Indiana Jones himself as well as the
3:57 · possibility of lethal traps there's the
4:00 · potentially dangerous levels of mercury
4:03 · so it's unlikely that anyone's going to
4:05 · be walking around in there anytime soon
4:07 · according to the World Health
4:09 · Organization just the inhalation of
4:11 · mercury vapor can produce harmful
4:13 · effects on the nervous Digestive and
4:15 · immune systems lungs and kidneys and may
4:17 · be
4:18 · fatal there's a reason we don't use
4:20 · mercury in thermometers anymore so if
4:24 · the Legends are true it could be bad
4:26 · news for anybody who wants to excavate
4:28 · the tomb but are they true well various
4:32 · soil analyses around the site of the
4:34 · mosum over the last few decades have
4:37 · shown significantly elevated levels of
4:39 · mercury in addition in 2020 a team of
4:43 · researchers used a technique called
4:45 · mobile differential absorption liar to
4:47 · analyze not the soil but the atmosphere
4:50 · surrounding the mound and they
4:52 · discovered much higher levels of mercury
4:54 · vapor directly above the mound compared
4:56 · to surrounding areas this makes sense
4:58 · when we consider Mercury's volatility if
5:01 · it's in the soil in high concentrations
5:03 · it'll also evaporate into the air all of
5:07 · this suggests that there might be some
5:08 · truth in the old Legends could there
5:11 · actually be rivers of mercury running
5:13 · through the Tomb of the first Chinese
5:15 · emperor quite possibly maybe one day
5:19 · we'll know for sure so thousands of
5:22 · years ago from Egypt to America to China
5:25 · people were handling Mercury but how how
5:29 · did all of these ancient civilizations
5:31 · get their hands on this amazing
5:33 · substance the answer is mercury 2
5:35 · sulfide which is found naturally in a
5:37 · beautiful red ore more commonly known as
5:40 · cinear it's the most prominent naturally
5:43 · occurring Mercury ore and there's
5:45 · evidence that humans have been mining
5:47 · cinear since the Neolithic times most
5:50 · likely to be used for paints and
5:52 · Cosmetics at some point its toxic nature
5:55 · became known in ancient Rome for
5:57 · instance slaves and criminals were often
6:00 · forced to work in cinear mines and it
6:02 · was effectively considered a death
6:04 · sentence for them but then how did these
6:07 · ancient civilizations take this rock and
6:10 · extract liquid mercury from it in 2022 a
6:14 · team of chemists and historians from the
6:16 · University of bolognia read through
6:19 · surviving documents written by
6:20 · Alchemists almost 2,000 years ago and
6:24 · they attempted to recreate these ancient
6:25 · methods in a modern lab they published a
6:29 · fast fting paper about their findings
6:31 · which is completely open access so I'll
6:33 · put the link in the description if you'd
6:34 · like to read it there were loads of
6:36 · ancient recipes describing the
6:38 · extraction of Mercury from cinear but
6:40 · the researchers categorized all of them
6:42 · into two groups Cod extraction and hot
6:46 · extraction with cold extraction they
6:49 · said the earliest known procedure for
6:51 · extracting Mercury was recorded by the
6:54 · natural philosopher theophrastus who
6:56 · stated in his work on stones in the
6:59 · fourth Century BCE Mercury is produced
7:02 · by grinding Cinnabar with vinegar in a
7:05 · copper mortar with a copper pesel modern
7:08 · chemists immediately recognize copper
7:10 · that is the metal from which pels and
7:12 · mortars are made as a key
7:14 · reagent so what the ancient Alchemists
7:17 · wouldn't have known is that the copper
7:19 · pesel and mortars were actually reacting
7:22 · with the Mercury sulfide in the cinear
7:24 · to form copper sulfide and Mercury the
7:27 · researchers recreated this procedure by
7:30 · grinding synthetic cinear with copper
7:32 · turnings and acetic acid after an hour
7:35 · they started to see droplets of liquid
7:37 · mercury forming the researchers also
7:40 · said that it is clear that the acid
7:43 · meaning the vinegar plays a catalytic
7:45 · role perhaps by removing the oxide
7:48 · coating on the metal surface they then
7:51 · used a technique called x-ray defraction
7:53 · to analyze the crystal structure of
7:55 · their product and they found that the
7:57 · original Mercury sulfide shown in red
8:01 · had been transformed into a completely
8:03 · different crystal structure that of
8:05 · copper sulfide shown in blue giving
8:08 · evidence for the success of the
8:10 · reaction so just the simple Act of
8:13 · grinding cinear with copper and vinegar
8:15 · can produce liquid
8:17 · mercury how about the hot extraction
8:20 · techniques here the researchers said
8:23 · according to ancient sources the hot
8:25 · extraction method of processing Mercury
8:27 · from cinear be divided into three
8:31 · procedures one simple heating of cinear
8:34 · two Heating cinar in a closed vessel in
8:37 · the presence of iron and three Heating
8:40 · cinear in the presence of so-called
8:42 · natrin oil in a closed vessel the first
8:46 · of these is just the reaction between
8:48 · Mercury sulfide and oxygen to form
8:50 · sulfur dioxide and
8:52 · mercury in the first century BC vrus by
8:57 · whom Da Vinci was inspired to draw his V
8:59 · truvian man described how when unrefined
9:03 · cinear was baked in a kilm to dry it out
9:06 · Mercury was always found on the floor of
9:08 · the Kiln so it seems like the simple Act
9:11 · of heating cinear led to the formation
9:14 · of mercury the researchers tried to
9:17 · recreate this method by heating
9:18 · synthetic cinear within an alumina
9:21 · crucible that was covered with a lid and
9:23 · found that liquid mercury condensed on
9:25 · the lid of The
9:26 · Crucible however they said that the the
9:29 · amount of oxygen estimated to be inside
9:31 · The Crucible is insufficient to complete
9:34 · the
9:35 · reaction to overcome this hdle and make
9:37 · the extraction technique more efficient
9:40 · we can assume that ancient Alchemists
9:42 · tried to add other ingredients before
9:44 · roasting cinear in closed
9:46 · vessels this brings us on to the second
9:49 · hot extraction method Heating cinear in
9:52 · the presence of iron in this case the
9:55 · Mercury sulfide would react solely with
9:57 · the iron and not with with any Oxygen
10:00 · giving us iron sulfide and
10:02 · Mercury the researchers recreated this
10:05 · method by placing the Cinnabar on a
10:07 · small iron plate within an alumin
10:10 · crucible that was then covered with a
10:13 · lid finally we have the third and most
10:16 · mysterious hot extraction technique
10:18 · heating cinar with Natron oil in a
10:21 · closed vessel which was described by The
10:23 · Alchemist pseudo
10:25 · democratus by the way this pseudo
10:28 · democratus is not the same person as the
10:30 · philosopher democratus who is one of the
10:33 · fathers of atomic theory if you want to
10:35 · learn more about him check out my series
10:38 · on the history of the atom anyway the
10:41 · reason why this method is the most
10:43 · mysterious of all is because it's not
10:45 · clear as to what nin oil actually is
10:49 · according to Wikipedia naturein deposits
10:52 · are sometimes found in Saline Lake Beds
10:54 · which arose in arid
10:56 · environments so the solid form of of
10:59 · this mineral is something that ancient
11:01 · civilizations had access to but how they
11:03 · made it into an oil isn't clear from the
11:06 · alchemical
11:07 · documents from translating old texts the
11:10 · researchers best guesses are that the
11:12 · oil form likely constituted a solution
11:16 · of sodium carbonate dissolved in water
11:18 · oil or
11:20 · vinegar their next step was to
11:22 · investigate the effect of sodium
11:24 · carbonate and they found that the
11:26 · addition of solid sodium carbonate
11:28 · without any Li liquid vastly improved
11:30 · the first hot extraction method which
11:32 · remember had led to an incomplete
11:35 · reaction with the addition of sodium
11:37 · carbonate the cinar fully converted into
11:41 · Mercury so sodium carbonate seems to be
11:44 · a very effective reagent for the
11:45 · production of
11:47 · mercury now to test it in a liquid form
11:50 · they made up Solutions of sodium
11:52 · carbonate dissolved in water vinegar and
11:54 · vegetable oil and tried heating Mercury
11:57 · sulfide in each one for the first two
12:00 · solutions although Mercury was produced
12:03 · no significant Improvement was observed
12:05 · in comparison to the reactions that
12:07 · occurred under dry conditions for the
12:10 · third solution they couldn't manage to
12:12 · produce Mercury at all to summarize many
12:16 · of these ancient techniques for the
12:17 · extraction of mercury were proven to
12:19 · work remarkably well ancient Alchemists
12:22 · could have made the liquid metal by
12:24 · grinding Cinnabar and vinegar with a
12:26 · copper pesin mortar or by making the
12:29 · cinear alone or with iron or with some
12:32 · form of a sodium carbonate solution so
12:35 · given enough power influence finances
12:38 · and resources perhaps it's not so crazy
12:41 · after all that an ancient Chinese
12:44 · emperor had the means to spend eternity
12:47 · surrounded by rivers of flowing
12:49 · Mercury let me know in the comments if
12:51 · you've heard any other amazing stories
12:53 · of mercury being used throughout history
12:55 · and if you enjoyed this video I'd really
12:57 · appreciate you subscribing it really
12:59 · helps out the channel thanks for
13:01 · watching and I'll see you in the next
13:02 · one

Summary: We got Mercury from Ford.

If the Mercury is there, it should be in the groundwater as well.

This would be a huge environmental disaster to clean up................

I had a small vial of mercury when I was a boy. I loved playing with it. It didn’t affect my cognition, though. I was born with all the stupidity I need.

:^)

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mercury+blues

Metallic mercury is relatively safe. It’s the oxides of mercury that bind easily to cells.

L

I didn’t know that.

Rewritten in simpler terms:

Mercury is like the coolest thing ever! It’s the only metal that’s liquid at room temperature, and it blows my mind that people had access to it thousands of years ago. Like, they found vials of it in ancient Egyptian tombs dating back to 3,000 to 12,000 years ago! And in this ancient Mesoamerican city, Teotihuacan, they discovered this chamber with thousands of treasures, and get this, a tiny landscape with pools of liquid mercury to mimic lakes.

But wait, here’s my fave story about mercury in ancient China. In the 3rd century BC, this dude Chin Shih Huang was the first emperor of China. He got obsessed with finding an elixir for immortality, so he started drinking mercury, thinking it had magical powers. Turns out, mercury is super poisonous, and he died at 49. Irony, right?

He got this insane tomb, though. It’s massive, with a terracotta army guarding it, and they say there are rivers of mercury flowing around it. But no one knows for sure ‘cause it’s booby-trapped and dangerous to enter. It’s wild to think about how people back then were handling this stuff without knowing how toxic it is.

Mercury comes from cinnabar, this red ore. They’ve been mining cinnabar since forever, probably for paints and cosmetics. Some ancient alchemists figured out how to extract mercury from cinnabar using copper equipment. Pretty cool, right? If you wanna dive deep into this, there’s a study you can check out. Super interesting stuff! 😎

So, like, ancient alchemists were trying to get mercury from cinnabar, right? They used copper mortars and stuff, and modern chemists are all, “Hey, we recognize copper!” But here’s the deal: those copper things were actually reacting with the mercury sulfide in cinnabar to make copper sulfide and mercury. These researchers recreated that by grinding synthetic cinnabar with copper and vinegar, and they got liquid mercury!

But wait, there’s more! They talked about hot extraction methods too. One was just heating cinnabar, and mercury formed. Another was heating cinnabar with iron, which gave iron sulfide and mercury. And then there’s this mysterious one with natron oil (we’re not really sure what that is). They think it could’ve been a sodium carbonate solution. When they used that with cinnabar, boom, mercury!

So, yeah, ancient peeps were pretty crafty in getting that liquid metal. 😄

I thought Queen was an English group.

Some day I’m going to have to learn how to post pictures on FR:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/iloasiapacific/35887661681/

Do you know the difference between an oral and rectal thermometer? TASTE

I remember in high school lab we had Mercury and passed it to each other to roll around in our hands.
I also remember mom painting our toys. with old house paint, probably lead paint.
I think my IQ is above 80 so no problems.

I loved playing with mercury (probably from broken thermometers) in school when I was a kid - mostly breaking it into smaller globules, then trying to join them all back together into one big drop. It was either that or listening to somebody tell me about the gross national product of Peru or such.

LOL

Metallic Mercury is easy to get.

This is Cinnibar, mercury ore. Put some in a sealed jar in the Sun. When it heats up a bit it gives off mercury vapor that condenses on the inside of the jar. Bingo, metallic mercury.

An outcropping of Cinnibar looks like somebody got a can of dark red spray paint ("oxblood") and sprayed it on the ground.

Ha, ha!

Metallic mercury has a strong surface tension and does not normally evaporate to a significant degree. Very small droplets, however, do evaporate and become available for reaction. When you drop or smash a droplet of mercury, you can end up with a fracturing effect which create these mini and micro droplets. For metallic mercury it is these very tiny droplets which become mercury vapor that are a health danger.

But yes, it is overwhelmingly the oxides and other mercury compounds that are inherently dangerous.

he would regularly drink Mercury thinking that it contained magical properties what he didn't know was that mercury is actually poisonous

Just like Leftists who don't know that socialism makes society sick, so they just keep pouring on more, hoping it'll cure the evils it itself creates.

I believe you can simply cook it. Yeah, in a retort to catch the vapors.

But, that is what slaves are for.

Transcript
0:00	·	[Music]
0:00	·	Mercury is the only metallic element in
0:02	·	existence that's a liquid at room
0:04	·	temperature and it's absolutely
0:06	·	mesmerizing to look at so I'm always
0:09	·	left feeling Amazed by the fact that
0:11	·	humans actually had access to this stuff
0:14	·	thousands of years ago for instance
0:17	·	vials of mercury have been found in
0:19	·	ancient Egyptian tombs that are around 3
0:21	·	and a 12,000 years old similarly
0:25	·	excavation of the ancient miso American
0:27	·	city of teoto wakan has revealed some
0:30	·	fascinating discoveries archaeologists
0:32	·	have Unearthed a chamber containing
0:34	·	thousands of treasures which had
0:36	·	remained undisturbed for 18800 years not
0:40	·	only that but they discovered a
0:42	·	miniature mountainous landscape that had
0:43	·	been constructed which had pools of
0:46	·	liquid mercury in some of the tiny
0:48	·	valleys to represent Lakes but here's my
0:51	·	favorite story about mercury in the
0:53	·	ancient
0:55	·	world in the 3dr century BC China
0:58	·	consisted of various Waring kingdoms
1:01	·	chin XI hang was the king of the chin
1:04	·	States and after years of conflict he
1:07	·	successfully conquered all of the other
1:09	·	states and became the first ever emperor
1:12	·	of a unified China towards the end of
1:15	·	his life he became obsessed with finding
1:17	·	an Elixir that would Grant him
1:19	·	immortality and he would regularly drink
1:22	·	Mercury thinking that it contained
1:24	·	magical properties what he didn't know
1:27	·	was that mercury is actually poisonous
1:29	·	and long-term ingestion can be extremely
1:32	·	detrimental to your health in the year
1:34	·	210 BC at the age of 49 he died
1:39	·	ironically his quest of immortality was
1:42	·	probably the very thing that cut his
1:44	·	life short but that's not the end of the
1:47	·	story he was put to rest in perhaps the
1:50	·	most impressive mosum ever built much of
1:54	·	what we know about it comes from an
1:56	·	ancient historian C makan who wrote
1:59	·	about the the mosum about 2 centuries
2:02	·	after its
2:03	·	construction according to him it took a
2:05	·	total of 700,000 men almost four decades
2:09	·	to build he described how it would have
2:12	·	been considered a serious breach if the
2:14	·	Craftsman who constructed the mechanical
2:16	·	devices and knew of its Treasures were
2:18	·	to divulge those secrets so after the
2:22	·	funeral ceremonies were completed and
2:24	·	the treasures were hidden away the inner
2:26	·	passageway was blocked and the outer
2:28	·	gate was lowered immediately trapping
2:31	·	all the workers and Craftsmen inside so
2:33	·	that no one could Escape trees were then
2:36	·	planted on the tomb Mound and nowadays
2:38	·	it's easy to mistake it as Just Another
2:40	·	Hill in the
2:42	·	landscape surrounding the tomb are
2:44	·	thousands of lifelike intricately
2:46	·	sculpted Warriors archers chariots and
2:49	·	horses now known as the Terracotta Army
2:53	·	the mosum itself was modeled on the
2:55	·	layout of siyang the capital of the Chin
2:58	·	Dynasty the tomb was filled with rare
3:01	·	artifacts and Priceless treasure and
3:04	·	allegedly continuously flowing all
3:07	·	around this recreated city were 100
3:10	·	Rivers of pure
3:12	·	Mercury now if it's true that's a lot of
3:16	·	mercury the thing is nobody knows for
3:18	·	sure if it's true or not archaeologists
3:21	·	have excavated the surrounding areas of
3:23	·	the Tomb and famously discovered the
3:25	·	guarding terra cotta Army as well as
3:28	·	mass Graves of some of the workers
3:30	·	but nobody has entered the tomb
3:33	·	itself this is partly due to a strong
3:35	·	desire to minimize any destruction of
3:37	·	the Tomb and with the associated
3:39	·	difficulties in Excavating it but it's
3:43	·	also due to Legends of booby traps such
3:45	·	as crossbows and arrows primed to shoot
3:48	·	at anyone who attempts to enter the tomb
3:51	·	from its description it sounds like the
3:52	·	only person who could survive would be
3:54	·	Indiana Jones himself as well as the
3:57	·	possibility of lethal traps there's the
4:00	·	potentially dangerous levels of mercury
4:03	·	so it's unlikely that anyone's going to
4:05	·	be walking around in there anytime soon
4:07	·	according to the World Health
4:09	·	Organization just the inhalation of
4:11	·	mercury vapor can produce harmful
4:13	·	effects on the nervous Digestive and
4:15	·	immune systems lungs and kidneys and may
4:17	·	be
4:18	·	fatal there's a reason we don't use
4:20	·	mercury in thermometers anymore so if
4:24	·	the Legends are true it could be bad
4:26	·	news for anybody who wants to excavate
4:28	·	the tomb but are they true well various
4:32	·	soil analyses around the site of the
4:34	·	mosum over the last few decades have
4:37	·	shown significantly elevated levels of
4:39	·	mercury in addition in 2020 a team of
4:43	·	researchers used a technique called
4:45	·	mobile differential absorption liar to
4:47	·	analyze not the soil but the atmosphere
4:50	·	surrounding the mound and they
4:52	·	discovered much higher levels of mercury
4:54	·	vapor directly above the mound compared
4:56	·	to surrounding areas this makes sense
4:58	·	when we consider Mercury's volatility if
5:01	·	it's in the soil in high concentrations
5:03	·	it'll also evaporate into the air all of
5:07	·	this suggests that there might be some
5:08	·	truth in the old Legends could there
5:11	·	actually be rivers of mercury running
5:13	·	through the Tomb of the first Chinese
5:15	·	emperor quite possibly maybe one day
5:19	·	we'll know for sure so thousands of
5:22	·	years ago from Egypt to America to China
5:25	·	people were handling Mercury but how how
5:29	·	did all of these ancient civilizations
5:31	·	get their hands on this amazing
5:33	·	substance the answer is mercury 2
5:35	·	sulfide which is found naturally in a
5:37	·	beautiful red ore more commonly known as
5:40	·	cinear it's the most prominent naturally
5:43	·	occurring Mercury ore and there's
5:45	·	evidence that humans have been mining
5:47	·	cinear since the Neolithic times most
5:50	·	likely to be used for paints and
5:52	·	Cosmetics at some point its toxic nature
5:55	·	became known in ancient Rome for
5:57	·	instance slaves and criminals were often
6:00	·	forced to work in cinear mines and it
6:02	·	was effectively considered a death
6:04	·	sentence for them but then how did these
6:07	·	ancient civilizations take this rock and
6:10	·	extract liquid mercury from it in 2022 a
6:14	·	team of chemists and historians from the
6:16	·	University of bolognia read through
6:19	·	surviving documents written by
6:20	·	Alchemists almost 2,000 years ago and
6:24	·	they attempted to recreate these ancient
6:25	·	methods in a modern lab they published a
6:29	·	fast fting paper about their findings
6:31	·	which is completely open access so I'll
6:33	·	put the link in the description if you'd
6:34	·	like to read it there were loads of
6:36	·	ancient recipes describing the
6:38	·	extraction of Mercury from cinear but
6:40	·	the researchers categorized all of them
6:42	·	into two groups Cod extraction and hot
6:46	·	extraction with cold extraction they
6:49	·	said the earliest known procedure for
6:51	·	extracting Mercury was recorded by the
6:54	·	natural philosopher theophrastus who
6:56	·	stated in his work on stones in the
6:59	·	fourth Century BCE Mercury is produced
7:02	·	by grinding Cinnabar with vinegar in a
7:05	·	copper mortar with a copper pesel modern
7:08	·	chemists immediately recognize copper
7:10	·	that is the metal from which pels and
7:12	·	mortars are made as a key
7:14	·	reagent so what the ancient Alchemists
7:17	·	wouldn't have known is that the copper
7:19	·	pesel and mortars were actually reacting
7:22	·	with the Mercury sulfide in the cinear
7:24	·	to form copper sulfide and Mercury the
7:27	·	researchers recreated this procedure by
7:30	·	grinding synthetic cinear with copper
7:32	·	turnings and acetic acid after an hour
7:35	·	they started to see droplets of liquid
7:37	·	mercury forming the researchers also
7:40	·	said that it is clear that the acid
7:43	·	meaning the vinegar plays a catalytic
7:45	·	role perhaps by removing the oxide
7:48	·	coating on the metal surface they then
7:51	·	used a technique called x-ray defraction
7:53	·	to analyze the crystal structure of
7:55	·	their product and they found that the
7:57	·	original Mercury sulfide shown in red
8:01	·	had been transformed into a completely
8:03	·	different crystal structure that of
8:05	·	copper sulfide shown in blue giving
8:08	·	evidence for the success of the
8:10	·	reaction so just the simple Act of
8:13	·	grinding cinear with copper and vinegar
8:15	·	can produce liquid
8:17	·	mercury how about the hot extraction
8:20	·	techniques here the researchers said
8:23	·	according to ancient sources the hot
8:25	·	extraction method of processing Mercury
8:27	·	from cinear be divided into three
8:31	·	procedures one simple heating of cinear
8:34	·	two Heating cinar in a closed vessel in
8:37	·	the presence of iron and three Heating
8:40	·	cinear in the presence of so-called
8:42	·	natrin oil in a closed vessel the first
8:46	·	of these is just the reaction between
8:48	·	Mercury sulfide and oxygen to form
8:50	·	sulfur dioxide and
8:52	·	mercury in the first century BC vrus by
8:57	·	whom Da Vinci was inspired to draw his V
8:59	·	truvian man described how when unrefined
9:03	·	cinear was baked in a kilm to dry it out
9:06	·	Mercury was always found on the floor of
9:08	·	the Kiln so it seems like the simple Act
9:11	·	of heating cinear led to the formation
9:14	·	of mercury the researchers tried to
9:17	·	recreate this method by heating
9:18	·	synthetic cinear within an alumina
9:21	·	crucible that was covered with a lid and
9:23	·	found that liquid mercury condensed on
9:25	·	the lid of The
9:26	·	Crucible however they said that the the
9:29	·	amount of oxygen estimated to be inside
9:31	·	The Crucible is insufficient to complete
9:34	·	the
9:35	·	reaction to overcome this hdle and make
9:37	·	the extraction technique more efficient
9:40	·	we can assume that ancient Alchemists
9:42	·	tried to add other ingredients before
9:44	·	roasting cinear in closed
9:46	·	vessels this brings us on to the second
9:49	·	hot extraction method Heating cinear in
9:52	·	the presence of iron in this case the
9:55	·	Mercury sulfide would react solely with
9:57	·	the iron and not with with any Oxygen
10:00	·	giving us iron sulfide and
10:02	·	Mercury the researchers recreated this
10:05	·	method by placing the Cinnabar on a
10:07	·	small iron plate within an alumin
10:10	·	crucible that was then covered with a
10:13	·	lid finally we have the third and most
10:16	·	mysterious hot extraction technique
10:18	·	heating cinar with Natron oil in a
10:21	·	closed vessel which was described by The
10:23	·	Alchemist pseudo
10:25	·	democratus by the way this pseudo
10:28	·	democratus is not the same person as the
10:30	·	philosopher democratus who is one of the
10:33	·	fathers of atomic theory if you want to
10:35	·	learn more about him check out my series
10:38	·	on the history of the atom anyway the
10:41	·	reason why this method is the most
10:43	·	mysterious of all is because it's not
10:45	·	clear as to what nin oil actually is
10:49	·	according to Wikipedia naturein deposits
10:52	·	are sometimes found in Saline Lake Beds
10:54	·	which arose in arid
10:56	·	environments so the solid form of of
10:59	·	this mineral is something that ancient
11:01	·	civilizations had access to but how they
11:03	·	made it into an oil isn't clear from the
11:06	·	alchemical
11:07	·	documents from translating old texts the
11:10	·	researchers best guesses are that the
11:12	·	oil form likely constituted a solution
11:16	·	of sodium carbonate dissolved in water
11:18	·	oil or
11:20	·	vinegar their next step was to
11:22	·	investigate the effect of sodium
11:24	·	carbonate and they found that the
11:26	·	addition of solid sodium carbonate
11:28	·	without any Li liquid vastly improved
11:30	·	the first hot extraction method which
11:32	·	remember had led to an incomplete
11:35	·	reaction with the addition of sodium
11:37	·	carbonate the cinar fully converted into
11:41	·	Mercury so sodium carbonate seems to be
11:44	·	a very effective reagent for the
11:45	·	production of
11:47	·	mercury now to test it in a liquid form
11:50	·	they made up Solutions of sodium
11:52	·	carbonate dissolved in water vinegar and
11:54	·	vegetable oil and tried heating Mercury
11:57	·	sulfide in each one for the first two
12:00	·	solutions although Mercury was produced
12:03	·	no significant Improvement was observed
12:05	·	in comparison to the reactions that
12:07	·	occurred under dry conditions for the
12:10	·	third solution they couldn't manage to
12:12	·	produce Mercury at all to summarize many
12:16	·	of these ancient techniques for the
12:17	·	extraction of mercury were proven to
12:19	·	work remarkably well ancient Alchemists
12:22	·	could have made the liquid metal by
12:24	·	grinding Cinnabar and vinegar with a
12:26	·	copper pesin mortar or by making the
12:29	·	cinear alone or with iron or with some
12:32	·	form of a sodium carbonate solution so
12:35	·	given enough power influence finances
12:38	·	and resources perhaps it's not so crazy
12:41	·	after all that an ancient Chinese
12:44	·	emperor had the means to spend eternity
12:47	·	surrounded by rivers of flowing
12:49	·	Mercury let me know in the comments if
12:51	·	you've heard any other amazing stories
12:53	·	of mercury being used throughout history
12:55	·	and if you enjoyed this video I'd really
12:57	·	appreciate you subscribing it really
12:59	·	helps out the channel thanks for
13:01	·	watching and I'll see you in the next
13:02	·	one