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

Solids

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, liquid pyramids have been spotted on Mercury.

Do not

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not activate the gate.
Do not activate the gate.
DO NOT ACTIVATE THE GATE!

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.

Re: Do not

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In addition to being cool stuff, mercury also has a very long history of use in gold extraction. I don't know about the people who built this particular structure; but mercury-amalgamation gold extraction is known to have been in use in South America well before the Spanish showed up. Given the human enthusiasm for gold, that's another point in mercury's favor as a funerary good, along with being weird and cool looking.

(Large scale extraction is now usually done by cyanide leaching, since that's somewhat less nasty than mercury amalgamation; but small scale miners often still use mercury. As one might imagine, the 'now heat the amalgam with a blowtorch to drive off the mercury and recover the gold' step is about as good for you as it sounds, possibly worse.)

Re: Do not

[PopeRatzo]

Fuck your aliens.

I know, right? It wasn't aliens that built the pyramids, or anything supernatural. It's stupid to think that.

Everybody knows it was Anunnaki, our ancestors, the Shining Ones, who gave this technology to humans over 250,000 years ago.

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.

Re: Do not

[penguinoid]

I'm not jumping to conclusions, but the people who have been making the case for historical alien visitors

Although I acknowledge that they're good workers, you should know that Mexicans aren't considered aliens in Mexico.

Re: Do not

[Irate Engineer]

I think you're thinking of pewter; tin, often (in the past) alloyed with lead.

Of course, for decades we burned leaded gasoline in our engines since it reduced knock so wonderfully, so there are several hundred ppm of lead in the atmosphere that didn't used to be there. It's still there, even though tetraethyl lead has been phased out of use.

Read up on Thomas Midgley Jr . He was a chemist and a prolific inventor, but sadly he set loose some of the nastier industrial chemicals into the world in the last century, somewhat unwittingly.

Hmmm

[koan]

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.

What's strange about any of that?

Re:Hmmm

[SeaFox]

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.

What's strange about any of that?

After 1800 years of solitude, the rubber balls were still bouncing!

Re:Hmmm

[ChrisMaple]

Jaguar branded cars didn't appear until about 1948. This is proof of time travel.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

A real king has Freddy Mercury in his tomb. (Or preferably all of Queen.)

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:Burial site of the first emperor of China

[Anonymous Coward]

While there are high levels of mercury there, it isn't at a level that is particular unsafe and not the reason they've yet to open it. Various other tombs had been devastated by half-ass archeology attempts several decades ago, and the Chinese don't want to mess up something so important. They've been working on some more minor tombs in the area and want to make sure that one is done right.

Re:Not nerdy enough

[PopeRatzo]

This shouldn't have been let out of the firehose. WTF is nerdy about this?

You're joking. Liquid mercury? Come on, show of hands: Who among us has not at some point in our lives broken open a thermometer in order to play with the mercury inside? That's a nerd rite of passage.

Hell, I'm old enough to remember when they made little maze puzzles with a blob of mercury inside that you'd try to get from one corner to the other. Those were the days before parents raised kids like veal. We had pocket knives, for chrissake. Can you imagine millennial parents giving their precious offspring pocket knives? I had my own .22 rifle by the time I was 10. All the liquid mercury I handled in my life, it's no wonder I'm half an imbecile.

What did they expect?

[CanadianMacFan]

Of course it would be liquid mercury. Now I'd be surprised if they found solid mercury down there!