Lakes of mercury and human sacrifices after 1,800 years, Teotihuacan reveals its treasures

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/sep/24/teotihuacan-pyramids-treasures-secret-de-young-museum-san-francisco

Lakes of mercury and human sacrifices – after 1,800 years, Teotihuacan reveals its treasures

Paul Laity

Sunday 24 September 2017 18.52 BST


In 2003, a tunnel was discovered beneath the Feathered Serpent pyramid in the ruins of Teotihuacan, the ancient city in Mexico. Undisturbed for 1,800 years, the sealed-off passage was found to contain thousands of extraordinary treasures lying exactly where they had first been placed as ritual offerings to the gods. Items unearthed included greenstone crocodile teeth, crystals shaped into eyes, and sculptures of jaguars ready to pounce. Even more remarkable was a miniature mountainous landscape, 17 metres underground, with tiny pools of liquid mercury representing lakes. The walls of the tunnel were found to have been carefully impregnated with powdered pyrite, or fool’s gold, to give the effect in firelight of standing under a galaxy of stars.

The archaeological site, near Mexico City, is one of the largest and most important in the world, with millions of visitors every year. This was its most exciting development for decades – and the significance of these new discoveries is explored in a major exhibition opening this month at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
(snip)

The tunnel was chanced upon by Mexican archaeologist Sergio Gómez Chávez, who, after days of heavy rain, noticed that a sinkhole – a danger to tourists – had opened up near the foot of the Feathered Serpent pyramid. He shone a torch in but could see only darkness, so tied a rope round his waist and was lowered by workers down the hole, which with surprise he realised was a perfectly cylindrical shaft.

There was, he recalls, a sharp stench that was nearly unbearable, but at the bottom he peered through a gap in the rubble to see an underground passage, evidently an ancient construction. Work proceeded cautiously: before a dig began, his team used a robot with a video camera to explore the tunnel, which turned out to be as long as a football field, passing below the nearby great plaza as well as the pyramid. “We were amazed by what no one had seen for at least 1,500 years,” says Gómez Chávez in the show’s catalogue. At one end, the passage opened out into three chambers containing riches worthy of a quest by Indiana Jones.

The vast Pyramids of the Sun and Moon are different from those of ancient Egypt, being temples rather than tombs. They are connected by the Street of the Dead as part of an urban grid, the whole pattern oriented to the movement of the sun. The city’s very design contains the idea of it being “the birthplace of the gods” – where the universe was thought to have begun. Watermarks along the walls of Gómez Chávez’s passage have proved that the huge plaza above it was deliberately flooded to create a kind of primordial sea, with pyramids as metaphorical mountains emerging from the water as at the beginning of time. Thousands of people would have witnessed ceremonies re-enacting the creation myth.


The inhabitants of the city, along with those from similar civilisations, believed the universe had three levels, connected by an axis: the celestial plane, the earthly plane and the underworld, which wasn’t the Biblical place of fiery punishment but a dark, watery realm of creation, with lakes and mountains – it signified riches and rebirth as well as death. The rich array of objects Gómez Chávez has brought up from the passage – large spiral shells, beetle wings arranged in a box, hundreds of metal spheres – was left there as treasure to appease the gods. But it also seems that the tunnel, with its pyrite galaxy and liquid mercury lakes, was itself a re-creation of the underworld.
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[democratisphere]

1. Amazing find. Always wonder what it would have been like to live during

ancient times. Thank you.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

24. I wonder that too.

I really do.

[Cracklin Charlie]

2. Kick

No time to read for comprehension now.

[trusty elf]

3. Fascinating

Thanks!

[SharonClark]

4. Travelled to Chiapis last May to see Mayan ruins - it is a fascinating history.

Thanks for sharing.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

5. I hope...

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!

[raven mad]

6. I'm fascinated by this.

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

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Lakes of mercury?

Don't they evaporate?

[Brother Buzz]

13. Very, very slowly at room, or in this case, cave temperature.

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

[bucolic_frolic]

14. Yeah, ok, but

1800 years slow?

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

[Brother Buzz]

15. It's sloughed off at the atomic level, but for all intents and purposes it doesn't evaporate

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.

[FakeNoose]

25. Mercury would be dangerous to humans

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.

[eppur_se_muova]

16. Mercury is used in barometers and vacuum gauges ... its vapor pressure is *very* low.

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.

[Warpy]

19. Not really, not in a cool environment

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.

[Brother Buzz]

20. The people who operated the retort to extract the mercury likely died toothless 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.

[Warpy]

21. Anyone who worked with mercury back in the bad old days ran into trouble

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.

[Brother Buzz]

22. Ah, that hat making process involved heat and produced the dangerous gas

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.

[Warpy]

23. I worked in a state mental asylum in the 60s

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.

[MuseRider]

8. Oh how incredible!

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.

[samnsara]

9. hope the earthquakes dont damage it

[Grammy23]

10. My family made several vacation trips to Mexico in the 60s.

My first time there, I was about 12 years old. My dad was fascinated by the culture there and had read up on the Aztecs, Toltecs and Mayans so, of course, many of our stops were at archeological sites and museums. I remember very well climbing to the top of the Pyramid to the Sun and gazing at all the things in the vicinity from atop the large pyramid. The nearby Pyramid to the Moon was smaller but similar in style to the Pyramid to the Sun. We saw all kinds of carved statues and posed with quite a few. Daddy knew a lot about the history and explained to us what they were thought to depict.

If he was alive today, I know he would love to go back and see other artifacts that have been discovered since we were there. There is so much to be gleaned from the things they left behind and will add more to what we already know about human attempts to explain who we are and why we are here. I have to admit, I would also like to go back to those places we saw, although I am pretty sure I would not be scampering up those steps to the top of the Pyramids with the same vigor I had as a 12 year old!

[parkia00]

11. Just like in China.

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.

[eppur_se_muova]

17. I was struck by that as well.

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.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. Visted that area almost 30 years ago

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).

[Warpy]

18. They pretty much do know how and why it was abandoned

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.