the.com/cinnabar
the rock so beautiful it poisoned every alchemist who chased the mercury hiding inside.
means A bright red mineral made of mercury sulfide, prized historically as the chief ore of mercury and as the source of the vermilion pigment.
from From the Greek 'kinnabari,' a word the Greeks themselves seem to have borrowed from the East — its deeper roots are uncertain, possibly Persian or another Oriental tongue. Curiously, the ancients used 'cinnabar' for more than one red substance, sometimes confusing the mineral with 'dragon's blood,' a red plant resin, as if the color alone earned the name.
- chemical name
- mercury sulfide, nature's most gorgeous toxin
- ancient pigment
- colored Roman frescoes and Chinese lacquer for millennia
- vermilion source
- the original red before synthetic dyes existed
- mercury ore
- smelting it released deadly vapor on miners
- Pompeii red
- walls there still blaze with its color
idria mine — slovenian cinnabar mine, second-largest historic source, operated since 1490s
mount avala — serbian cinnabar deposits near belgrade, mined extensively during ottoman period