Ancient Maya cities like Tikal and Cerén have been closely polluted with mercury, in keeping with latest evaluation of soil from the websites. Exposure to the aspect could have been a well being hazard for the Maya and could possibly be a threat to archaeologists right this moment, in keeping with the staff that studied the samples.

The mercury seemingly seeped into the soil after getting used for quotidian functions, like portray homes and ceramics. The evaluation of the mercury concentrations throughout the settlements is published in Frontiers in Environmental Science.

Cinnabar wasn’t used completely by the Maya. Recent evaluation of the paint on a 1,000-year-old golden burial masks of the Sicán individuals discovered proof of the reddish substance, together with blood. Both had symbolic significance for Mesoamerican cultures just like the Sicán and the Maya. And hundreds of years earlier than the Maya and Sicán, the Neolithic residents of Çatalhöyük in Turkey used cinnabar as a pigment in burials.

According to check co-author Nicholas Dunning, a geoarchaeologist on the University of Cincinnati, the Maya thought of cinnabar to comprise ch’ulel—soul power—making it a sacred substance repeatedly utilized in ornamental contexts.

The Maya would use cinnabar as a paint and a powder on partitions and pottery. Then, the cinnabar leached mercury into the native soil and water.

“At this point, biological archaeologists have not looked for Hg in the skeletal remains found in Maya burials so it is impossible to say if contamination will show up in such investigations,” Dunning stated in an electronic mail to Gizmodo. “One complication that will hinder such research is that many royal and other elite burials included cinnabar powder, which was liberally sprinkled over the skeletons and might leach into those bones.”

In earlier analysis, a staff that included Dunning found mercury within the historic consuming water reservoirs of Tikal. The new work expands on these findings by measuring the presence of mercury on Maya websites in Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico.

“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,” stated Duncan Cook, a geographer on the Australian Catholic University and a co-author of the paper, in a Frontiers release.

How the Maya obtained the cinnabar is unclear. Most Maya websites are removed from geological mercury sources, so the aspect could have gotten into Maya arms through the commerce routes that stretched throughout Mesoamerica.

Mercury concentrations have been highest at Tikal, a big Maya website in Guatemala, in keeping with the staff’s evaluation. There, some soils had mercury concentrations of 17.16 elements per million (Frontiers famous that sediment mercury has a poisonous impact on people at 1 half per million).

The researchers steered that future archaeological initiatives contemplate extra safety on dig websites recognized to have excessive concentrations of mercury. Investigating how the Maya obtained their poisonous decorations is necessary, however the well being of archaeologists shouldn’t be compromised to make it occur.

More: 1,000-Year-Old Gold Mask Found in Tomb Was Painted With Human Blood