In a chamber at the end of a tunnel in Mexico sealed for nearly 1,800 years, archeologists make a toxic discovery

In the bowels of Teotihuacan, a mysterious, ancient Mexican city whose history has eluded experts for more than a century, an archaeologist made a toxic and potentially tremendous discovery: liquid mercury.

Project leader Sergio Gomez came upon “large amounts” of the silvery stuff in an underground chamber beneath the Quetzalcoatl Temple, one of several sacred pyramids at the site 30 miles from Mexico City.

Though the site has been excavated since the 19th century, little is understood about its leaders and inhabitants. No royal tombs have been found there, and until this month, neither had mercury — a chemical whose presence at a few other ancient sites usually indicated that the place had religious or royal significance.

The mercury “completely surprised us,” Gomez told Reuters, and it’s still not clear why the chemical was put in the chamber. Rare, difficult to mine and dangerous to handle, he knows that liquid mercury was prized for its reflective properties — perhaps it was supposed to represent a river or lake to the underworld.

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