Comment by gerdesj
11 hours ago
Superb!
I expect whoever coated the remains with that red cinnabar stuff died rather early, probably with tooth and hair loss and severe mental issues. Perhaps this fate was expected but given that "mad hatters" were a thing until fairly recently, people can be a bit strange when it comes to dealing with poisons.
The guide notes point out that only the most sacred rituals involved this red mercurial stuff. I'm not surprised. It might be rare but rarer still will be people willing to deploy it unless that fate is considered a good way to go.
That tour is a remarkable use of the technology.
It's something we have to be careful of while working on site! We're really careful around the rooms that have mercury in them--there are few that I didn't put in the guide also.
I was wondering about this too: they've found high levels of mercury in the water supply at Maya cities and believe now it contributed to the eventual collapse: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/mercury-and-algal-bl...
> “The drinking and cooking water for the Tikal rulers and their elite entourage almost certainly came from the Palace and Temple Reservoirs,” wrote Lentz and his colleagues. “As a result, the leading families of Tikal likely were fed foods laced with mercury at every meal.”
This makes me think: what if today's rulers are being poisoned by something making them act like idiots?
> This makes me think: what if today's rulers are being poisoned by something making them act like idiots?
Leaded gasoline! With how old politicians are in the US, they are almost certainly affected.
It could be that there is something making our leaders mentally ill, or it could be that only the mentally ill think that they should be leaders.
Claiming that today’s rulers are acting like idiots seems off topic. And subjective too; even if only because yesterday’s rulers weren’t different.
Ha! that's the best theory yet
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