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The Maya used so much red paint that they poisoned their water with mercury, mud sediments reveal
Live Science • • world
Key Points:
- A new study reveals that the ancient Maya's extensive use of red paint containing cinnabar, a mercury-sulfide mineral, led to mercury poisoning of lakes and waterways in the Yucatán Peninsula.
- Cinnabar runoff was transformed by bacteria into toxic methylmercury in lake sediments, accumulating in the food chain and harming freshwater fisheries vital to the Maya diet.
- Sediment core analysis from Maya-era sites showed mercury levels far exceeding modern safety limits, with evidence of environmental damage such as the disappearance of freshwater shellfish and algae.
- While mercury poisoning was severe during the Preclassic and Classic periods (A.D. 40 to 820), its environmental impact was declining before the Maya civilization's collapse, suggesting it may have been a contributing but not primary cause.
- Cinnabar was imported into the Yucatán, likely from Honduras, and its use ceased in some areas centuries before the collapse but persisted longer in others, indicating regional variation in environmental effects.
