Gateway to the underworld found beneath ancient Mexican pyramid
An ancient pyramid in Mexico was filled with pools of a rare element in its underground chambers, leading to new theories that the structure may have had a shocking hidden purpose.
Mexico's Temple of Quetzalcoatl, or the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, in the ancient city of Teotihuacan is believed to have been built between 1,800 and 1,900 years ago.
A discovery suggests that the ancient civilization at Teotihuacan used the temple to 'look into the supernatural world.'
Researcher found 'large quantities' of rare and toxic liquid mercury in hidden chambers at the end of a 338-foot-long tunnel.
Liquid mercury shimmers and has reflective properties like water or a mirror. Water was seen as a portal to the divine or underworld, connecting the living to supernatural realms.
Mexican researcher Sergio Gómez believed the Teotihuacan civilization filled the chamber with pools of mercury to act like a gateway to the underworld for an unknown Mesoamerican ruler.
The Feathered Serpent Pyramid
Large amounts of liquid mercury were found in a chamber at the end of a tunnel (pictured) that had been sealed off for more than 1,800 years
Along with the pools of liquid mercury, researchers at the site also unearthed large sheets of mica, a shiny silicate mineral with insulating properties.
These two materials were likely part of an elaborate ritual.
To date, archeologists have only found 'rivers' of liquid mercury in one other pyramid-like structure in the world - the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in China - making its use in ancient structures baffling.
Expeditions throughout Mesoamerica have only found much smaller traces of liquid mercury at one Olmec and two Mayan sites.
Excavations in the early 1900s uncovered mica all around the city of Teotihuacan, with even more lining the chambers of the nearby Pyramid of the Sun and within the tunnel under the Feathered Serpent Pyramid.
Annabeth Headrick, an art history professor at the University of Denver specializing in Mesoamerican cultures, said after the discovery: 'Mirrors were considered a way to look into the supernatural world, they were a way to divine what might happen in the future.'
'A lot of ritual objects were made reflective with mica,' Headrick told The Guardian.
Even stranger is the fact that one of the few major sources of mica anywhere near Teotihuacan sits in Brazil, roughly 4,600 miles away.
Additionally, mercury doesn't exist in nature in its liquid form, meaning the ancient Mesoamericans had to use an extremely difficult and hazardous process to extract it from a rock called cinnabar - a light red stone made up of solid mercury sulfide.
Specifically, they would have needed to heat this stone until the mercury would begin to melt out, and then somehow safely transport the highly toxic element to the pyramid tunnel without dying from exposure.
Researchers argue that the mercury and mica were part of a ritual marking the journey of an unknown Mesoamerican king into the underworld.
Mexico's Temple of Quetzalcoatl, or the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, built between 1,800 and 1,900 years ago
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14625485/Gateway-underworld-beneath-ancient-Mexican-pyramid-hints-advanced-civilization.html
