Cinnabar is a mineral that has long been the basis of rich red paint. It was made by the Etruscans, and the ancient Egyptians, and the Phoenicians. At the same time, in Russia such paint was used for painting icons. The mineral on a fresh chip resembles bright spots of blood. From Arabic, "cinnabar" is translated as "dragon's blood." The second name of the stone is cinnabarite.
Cinnabar is a mineral that contains 86.2% mercury. It crystallizes in syngony, predominantly forming small thick tabular or rhombohedral crystals, powdery or granular-crystalline masses. The stone is also characterized by germination twins and perfect cleavage in the 1st direction. In thin fragments, the mineral is transparent, has an interesting "diamond" luster. The stone melts easily, and when heated to 200˚C it evaporates completely, forming sulfur dioxide and mercury vapors.
Origin
These minerals and stones are the most common mercury minerals. Occurs in near-surface hydrothermal depositsalong with calcite, quartz, antimonite, barite, galena, pyrite, marcasite, sometimes with native gold and native mercury. Cinnabar is often deposited in veins in highly metamorphosed jasperoid rocks associated with hot alkaline springs and recently h alted volcanic activity.
Residual rather large eluvial-slope placers, alluvial and spoon placers of near demolition, gold-bearing placers, from which cinnabar is extracted along the way, are of independent industrial interest. Residual placers of the mineral are most common in places where chemical weathering crusts appear. Small but very rich accumulations of the mineral are confined to deluvial and eluvial deposits in karst cavities and sinkholes.
In high and temperate latitudes you can also find cinnabar. This is due to breakups in the interfluves and slopes in the area of the ore field. The eluvial-slope placers of the mineral are in the form of bedded deposits and contain cinnabar together with quartz (native mercury is also found). But in alluvial and spoon placers, the mineral accumulates in the form of grains and rounded pebbles, which are composed of massive dense varieties. Its main mass is on the raft. These placers have a length of 1-2 km, while the thickness of the reservoir is up to 3 m. They are mainly associated with primary sources that go to the bottom of the valleys, in addition, they are deposits of a nested or jet structure. Placers of cinnabar are located in North America, in the NorthEast of Russia. The age of mineral placers is Pliocene-Quaternary; at the same time, alluvial buried placers of cinnabar were found in the North-East of our country among coastal depressions.
Deposits
The world's largest deposit is located in Spain, which until recently accounted for about 80% of all mercury production in the world. Also mined in Ukraine, Yugoslavia, Italy, USA. Of the deposits in Central Asia, the largest is in Kyrgyzstan (Khaidarkan and Chauvay), as well as in Tajikistan (Adrasman). In our country, there is also a large deposit in Chukotka.
Magical Properties
Professionals say that cinnabar is a mineral that understands and feels all the problems of its owner, but does not calm, but teaches a difficult period to go through easier - to laugh at the situation and yourself. The stone shows the owner how best to behave in order to avoid trouble in the future. In general, cinnabar, the color of which many associate with blood, can change the human character and teach you how to live, not survive, learning life lessons and having fun.
Astrologers advise wearing products with this mineral to all signs of the zodiac with the exception of Scorpio. He serves Taurus best. Although if you constantly carry minerals and stones with you, then the state of human he alth may be shaken. Due to this, experts advise wearing a product with such a nugget only in difficult life situations. At the same time, do this until the attitude towards the precedent changes, and the person begins to relate withhumor to trouble.
Cinnabar was especially popular during the heyday of alchemy in European countries. Then mercury was a symbol of the search for immortality. It was an indispensable component of the research of every self-respecting alchemist. For many, the purple hue of mercury vapor is still associated with a mystery. Needless to say, alchemists did not often live to be thirty years old, and most of them, according to contemporaries, showed signs of mercury poisoning.
Healing properties
Since cinnabar is mercury sulfide, this mineral cannot be used for healing. Its ingestion can lead to poisoning or death of a person. In the East, in ancient times, the stone was used to treat leprosy, although its effectiveness is doubtful. Cinnabar, whose color strikes many today, was used in small doses in Europe to treat syphilis, but this often led to death or severe poisoning of the patient.
Amulets and talismans
This stone is the talisman of financiers, businessmen, people who tend to dramatize situations, as well as everyone who repeats some mistake repeatedly. It can be used sparingly and occasionally.
Interesting
Red cinnabar in the Roman Empire was mined to obtain red natural pigment and mercury. And today some of the Roman mines are being developed. Pliny the Elder mentions in his writings that in Spain, Ancient Rome bought about 4.5 tons of mercury every year.
Another ancient mine is Khaidarkan in Kyrgyzstan, where various traces of ancient work have also been preserved: metal wedges, large workings, clay retorts for firing cinnabar, lamps, huge dumps of cinders formed during this. Archaeological excavations show that mercury was mined in Kyrgyzstan for many centuries, and only in the 13th-14th centuries, after the successors of Genghis Khan destroyed all the craft and trade centers here, ore mining was stopped. In the middle of the twentieth century, this Khaidarkan deposit actively resumed its work. In ancient times, the mineral was mined not as a source of mercury, but as an expensive and irreplaceable mineral pigment.
