FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[emilycarvar]

Cinnabar, the red, rhombohedral mercury sulphide (HgS), is the principal ore mineral of mercury. It often occurs in association with native mercury and with sulphides such as pyrite. Cinnabar has a cubic polymorph, metacinnabar (metacinnaBaryte), and the two species commonly occur together. The widespread use of mercury as an amalgamation agent for the recovery of gold and silver in small-scale alluvial mining has been a serious local environmental problem for some centuries in parts of Latin America

[Jordi Fabre]

Hi Emily, welcome to FMF.

I moved your post creating a new thread.
"The histories behind mineral specimens" area where you placed formerly your post, is mostly a literary section, a place where explain histories, so I considered that your scientific message deserve to be in this "Minerals and Mineralogy" section.

Jordi

[Screenname]

Cinnabar is also the source of the pigment vermillion used in paints but because of the mercury content of cinnabar vermillion has long since been replaced by the pigment. cadmium red which contains cadmium instead of mercury. The history of this pigment goes all the way back to ancient China, India and Spain since prehistory. Also the Romans used it but called it minium and it was the most valuable pigment being used to color the faces of Generals. The synthesis of vermilion from mercury and sulfur may have been invented by the Chinese; the earliest known description of the process dates from the 8th century. Vermillion was also made into a paste called cinnabar paste used in oriental art to stamp their personal seal onto their art work and is still used too and can be found in specialty oriental stores.

[Montanpark]

Quote: Also the Romans used it but called it minium and it was the most valuable pigment being used to color the faces of Generals.

Minium (Pb2PbO4) is a lead oxide of red colour, it is still used in modern times as anti corrosion paint but due to the toxicity of lead it gets more and more abandoned. Cinnabar was called cinnabaris/cinnabari in latin and is a different material/mineral. Although in medieval times the term minium was also used to describe cinnabar (and minium falsum or minium secundarium to describe the lead oxide minium or also iron oxide pigments)... This has led to quite a lot of confusion.

Since the 13th century (Albertus Magnus) Pb2PbO4 (in german Mennige or Bleimennige) has been called "Minium".

cheers
Roger

[Screenname]

I guess those Romans were a bit confused then as to what they were truly putting on their faces, thank you for clearing that up

[Montanpark]

Daniel,
it is much more complicated :-) .. i just checked my literature more thoroughly ... the naming of minium was very inconsequent. There are some interesting articles on pigments at this website (in german) which i have printed out for my archive ... if you may want to try an online translator ...

https://kremer-pigmente.de/42500.htm
(link normalized by FMF)

cheers
Roger

[Screenname]

thanks Rodger I appreciate that and will try to see if I can get that translated.