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Science in Poland reports that cinnabar has been recovered from graves in a Scythian cemetery in southern Ukraine. Known as the Chervony Mayak cemetery, the site was in use from the second century B.C. to the mid-third century A.D. More than 175 graves in the cemetery have been excavated to date. Lumps of cinnabar, a toxic mercury sulphide with an intense red color, were found in three of these burials by a team of researchers led by Oleksandr Symonenko of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The lumps have now been analyzed by Beata Polit of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University...

How On Earth Did Ancient Civilisations Get MERCURY? | 13:03Chemistorian | 7.07K subscribers | 255,286 views | Premiered January 14, 2024

Toxic levels of a pollutant commonly associated with the wastes of modern industry have been uncovered amid the most unlikely of archaeological sites. Long before conquistadors from far-off lands introduced the decay of war and disease, Maya cultures were dusting the soils of their urban centers with the heavy metal mercury. - snip - "Discovering mercury buried deep in soils and sediments in ancient Maya cities is difficult to explain, until we begin to consider the archaeology of the region which tells us that the Maya were using mercury for centuries." - snip - Perhaps the most widely used form...

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukrainian security officers have arrested two Middle Eastern men whom they said possessed a substance that has been touted by sellers as an ingredient in nuclear weapons and dismissed by others as a hoax. Security agents in the southern city of Odessa seized 24 pounds of a substance they said was radioactive and identified as "red mercury," a State Security Service spokesman said Monday on condition of anonymity. He said they arrested two men from a Middle Eastern country, "Foreign citizens were looking for an opportunity to purchase a quantity of radioactive material in Ukraine and to...