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https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/mercury-and-algal-blooms-poisoned-maya-reservoirs-at-tikal/
For centuries, Tikal was a bustling Maya city in what is now northern Guatemala. But by the late 800s CE, its plazas and temples stood silent, surrounded by mostly abandoned farms. A recent study suggests a possible explanation for its decline: mercury and toxic algal blooms poisoned the water sources that should have carried the city through dry seasons.
Tikal’s Maya rulers built the city’s reservoirs to store water from rain and runoff during the winter months. The pavement of the large plazas in the heart of the city tilted slightly, helping funnel rainwater into the reservoirs. Over the centuries, dust and litter settled into the bottom of the reservoirs, too, providing a record of what the environment around Tikal was like—and what was washing into the city’s water supply. University of Cincinnati biologist David Lentz and his colleagues sampled layers of sediment dating back to the mid-800s, and they found that two of Tikal’s central reservoirs would have been too polluted to drink from.
Journal Reference:
David L. Lentz, Trinity L. Hamilton, Nicholas P. Dunning, et al. Molecular genetic and geochemical assays reveal severe contamination of drinking water reservoirs at the ancient Maya city of Tikal [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-67044-z)
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday July 01 2020, @11:50AM (2 children)
I'm sure they sort of figured that out themselves -- hey people that drink the green flowery water from reservoir two get very sick. Perhaps we shouldn't drink that stuff. But then they might not have had options. It's sort of like how in a lot of places people somehow thought it was a great idea to powder their faces with lead, mercury and arsenic -- made you super pretty -- or to make utensils or drinking cups from it. Made sense at the time before they knew better. Eventually they/we figured out that stuff made you sick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @06:08PM (1 child)
not a goldsmith but isn't mercury used in gold works?
anyways ... maybe, as with many "high cultures" the so called "rule of law" went up in smokes when the paper shuffling cogs and wheels -aka- burocrazies made a honest or maybe not so honest mistake of rubbing the behind-the-scene foundation of physical violance (read: army) the wrong way?
being in the military can be very nobel and christian 'cause the weakly "rule of law" totally depends on them but at the same time wants to strongly govern them: now for the other cheek.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Wednesday July 01 2020, @06:21PM
Mercury will dissolve gold. After the gold is dissolved you boil off the mercury. Don't ever do this though.