The Use of Mercury by the First Emperor of China (2015) | Hacker News Reader

The Use of Mercury by the First Emperor of China (2015)

chemistryworld.com

41 pointsdr_dshiv18 comments

> Yet even if this mercury was indeed used for fantastical landscaping, Duan doubts that there can have been much of it... he thinks the chamber might have contained at most 100 tons of the liquid metal: around 7m3.

That's a LOT of mercury. 7 cubic meters of a liquid can cover an area the size of a football field to a depth of 1.3 millimeters. Concentrated in a few narrow channels representing rivers and peripheral seas, the depth could be increased to several inches.

Why do historians go to such lengths to try to argue that ancient records are fantastical exaggerations? These people had the technology, resources, and political will to build a football field-sized map of China with rivers of mercury. If there are records saying that they built one, chances are they actually did.

By the way, it's also enough mercury to poison millions of people. That tomb should be a Superfund site.

"it's also enough mercury to poison millions of people. That tomb should be a Superfund site."

It's a bit terrifying to imagine if the tomb is intact, that someone could drill, pump, and dump it all in a river. On a relatively low budget.

Then maybe for their next act of senseless mustache twirling villainry , they could put razor blades in Halloween candy.

It's 7 cubic meters of poison. That's pretty unique.

My point is why would anybody other than a Captain Planet villain go through the effort of pumping several tons of mercury out of a historic site into a river just for shits and giggles?

The environmental terrorism angle to this story is just fear mongering paranoia.

Rajneeshees did mass poisoning, and not as "environmental terrorism". Non-state actor sarin gas attacks happen. As do ricin, anthrax, etc. There's no shortage of terrible people that want to do terrible things with terrible stuff.

Exceptionally rare events. You may as well fear that somebody could put razor blades in apples and give them to kids. Opportunities to hurt other people are abundant but psychos who'd want to are not.

Emperor Qin was seeking to become immortal. The most famous remnant of this emperor are the Terracotta warriors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army).

The cool thing Qin did was introduce and enforce standardization of writing / measurements / item parts. This is mentioned in The Fall and Rise of China by Richard Baum at UCLA. I didn't know until today this inspiration came from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Feizi.

Qin also was known for having many attempts to assassinate him. For those interested in a fictional portrayal of the first Qin emperor, The Emperor and the Assassin is a very good movie. (Mandarin, english subtitles)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_and_the_Assassin

Interesting they mention cinnabar, one of the candidates for the origin of the "red mercury" myth. The myth was discussed here a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20948788 (ahh, appears to have been the catalyst for this being posted)

> He had sent a minister on a voyage far over the eastern seas in search of a mythical potion of eternal life. But that expedition never returned

Makes me wonder about the details of that arrangement. What promise could possibly make the minister return from such an expedition?

If he does find the secret to eternal life, the obvious choice for the minister would be take it himself. The emperor would have a strong motive to get rid of anyone else knowing the secret after he got it from the minister.

If he doesn't, well, why go back to a tyrant and face potential punishment for failure?

>Makes me wonder about the details of that arrangement. What promise could possibly make the minister return from such an expedition?

Something like: "Don't forget I have your parents, brothers, sisters, wife, kids here, and I'll behead them or worse if you don't return".

Hardly any reason to return to the emperor. To quote Wikipedia if I may:

> The Records of the Grand Historian says he came to a place with "flat plains and wide swamps" (平原廣澤) and proclaimed himself king, never to return.

> Ancient scholars credited Xu Fu for being the founding father, and catalyst of the development of ancient Japanese society.

Except that genetically there is no connection between China and Japan...

Lol WTF are you talking about? If you diff Chinese and Japanese DNA (typical population) there is a hell of a lot less than if you were to do the same with a European or African genetics. Of course Japanese and Chinese genetics overlap a lot; so of course they're related, but distinct genetic groups.

Racial stereotyping aside, genetic and anthropological studies show no connection between the mainline populations of Japan and China. They derive from different migrations into asia.

Slightly OT. In Barcelona, Spain there is a work of art called the Calder Mercury Fountain.

It is absolutely mesmerizing. It reminds me of when I broke a thermometer as a kid and the poison control center instructed my parents to use magnets to clean it up. I still remember the shimmering beauty.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Q35_zuffGqk

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/calder-mercury-fountain

A highly recommended BBC/natGeo film about the tomb of the first emperor of China, who built a complex 200 times bigger than Egypt's valley of the kings. Supposedly took over 700,000 men. The tomb itself has never been excavated. And probably won't in our lifetime.

https://wwjw.businesswire.com/news/home/20161011006769/en/Ma...

> ‘We have no mature technologies and effective measures to protect the relics,’ he says.

A great attitude! Much the opposite of uncovering Troy with dynamite.

Also, given the toxicity of mercury, a wise caution.

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