Liquid Mercury Found Under Mexican Pyramid

An anonymous reader writes: An archaeologist has discovered liquid mercury at the end of a tunnel beneath a Mexican pyramid, a finding that could suggest the existence of a king's tomb or a ritual chamber far below one of the most ancient cities of the Americas. Mexican researcher Sergio Gómez ... has spent six years slowly excavating the tunnel, which was unsealed in 2003 after 1,800 years. Last November, Gómez and a team announced they had found three chambers at the tunnel’s 300ft end, almost 60ft below the the temple. Near the entrance of the chambers, they a found trove of strange artifacts: jade statues, jaguar remains, a box filled with carved shells and rubber balls.

Comments

Re: Do not

[ledow]

Oh, fuck off.

They heated cinnabar ore. You get mercury when you do that. These people had metal, mined, and could build vast structures that weigh more than any skyscraper did for millennia after them.

You don't need a supernatural explanation that they found a liquid metal (a liquid mirror, in effect) fucking intriguing and so prized it as some kind of treasure to bury with their kings.

That people in these ancient eras had brains seemed to be frowned upon, as if we're the only humans who could be allowed to do that. Ancient Greek, ancient Egyptian, etc. civilisations all had astounding knowledge and abilities. Just because they were never able to fully capitalise on them and then we suffered a few thousand years of poxy ignorance doesn't mean they weren't geniuses. (Just so happens that several of those millennia were dominated by religious shit, Crusades, etc.).

Antikythera (extremes of "clockwork", gearing and mathematical technology), pyramids, battery technology, steam-powered engines, railways, they had a shit-ton of expertise, but the problem was that the insights were few and far between and hard to do, and secondary to surviving for the most part, so unfortunately they never were able to be joined together in the way we could do now.

Fuck your aliens. Pay your respects to thousands of years of education, science, inquisitiveness, some of the greatest minds who ever lived, single individuals who knew all of established science for their time, amazing insights, and artisans capable of creating their off-the-wall ideas using some of the most difficult craftsmanships in existence.

I hate these archaeology posts lately

[__aasehi2499]

They don't show any photos of the items the headline brought you in with. How hard is it to take a photo?!?

Re: Do not

[Ol Olsoc]

Pay your respects to thousands of years of education, science, inquisitiveness, some of the greatest minds who ever lived, single individuals who knew all of established science for their time, amazing insights, and artisans capable of creating their off-the-wall ideas using some of the most difficult craftsmanships in existence.

THIS!

Ah yes, the" Ancient Aliens" mindset of some folks. It's so damn amazing how some people assume that humans are all too stupid to have ever done anything worthwhile or clever, and needed "aliens" to come teach us.

People have their problems. We like to kill each other for fun, and we can be really nasty to each other at other times. But we're actually pretty damned smart when you think about it. Our ancestors were capable of a lot of amazing things, and there really isn't the need to invoke beings that had to come help us because humans are soooo stoopid. An intelligent person from say Pharonic times, would be able to understand modern technology after some exposure to it. They weren't stupid, not even close.

Having watched that AA show a few times, it is just one long argument from personal incredulity. And the problem with accepting arguments from personal incredulity is that the biggest idiot in the room always wins.