Message #46507

[forestman]

Hi Tom (and anyone else !),

From your comment about not knowing substitutes for cinnabar had been used so early it seems I might have unintentionally mislead.

Cinnabar is an ore of mercury sulphide that is mined. Mercury is poisonous and mining it is bad for the health which was known by the Romans and the Spanish used criminals to mine it which was considered to be a death sentence. It was expensive to mine, in Roman times as a pigment it was on a par with gold leaf cost wise.

Synthetic cinnabar is made from combining mercury and sulphur, heating it to produce vapours which condense as crystals which are ground to produce a cinnabar pigment. So it doesn't relate to the moulded plastic cinnabar we see.

I also implied that vermilion was different to cinnabar which was implied in my reading. They appear to be one and the same. Essentially cinnabar (mercury sulphide) is the source of the brilliant red or scarlet pigment termed vermilion. But reds weren't just produced from cinnabar as ferric oxide was also used and additives to thicken layers like pigs blood and brick dust created reds and different shades of red were used in the same periods.

Regards, Adrian.