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How Did Humans Discover Mercury?

Neon Rush

234,853 views

Mercury or quicksilver is the only metal on Earth that is liquid at room temperature, captivating human imagination across millennia while hiding inside a vibrant red stone.

You Will Learn in This Video:

The Sacred Red Rock: How prehistoric humans at Catalhoyuk and ancient Iberia mined cinnabar long before ever extracting liquid metal.

Accidental Extraction: How heating cinnabar past 580°C produced the miraculous, shifting droplets of pure quicksilver.

Ancient Obsessions & Toxic Tombs: From Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s legendary liquid mercury rivers in China to secret chambers beneath Mexican pyramids.

The Engine of Imperial Wealth: How the Spanish Empire used the patio process to revolutionize global silver mining at massive environmental costs.

Scientific Revolutions & Dark Legacies: How quicksilver birthed barometers, thermometers, and modern chemistry while triggering tragedies like Mad Hatter syndrome and Minamata disease.

If you enjoyed this deep dive into the history of humanity’s most fascinating metal, hit the like button, subscribe for more breakdowns, and drop a comment telling us what discovery to cover next!

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20 Comments

@Nilsis1986 2 weeks ago Pinned

quick math: 13.5 g/cm3 uhhhm 6 cups of water?? including the cups??? it should be 13.5 cups of water.... water has a density of 1 g /cm3

@AmplifytheMind 12 days ago

Future humans are going to make a video like this of us but for microplastics.

@alaskanlass 2 weeks ago

I'd appreciate seeing a video about how ancient people marked time and the calendar. They obviously didn't say, I'm alive during 3500 BC.
One of your videos showed how that during the bronze age, different kingdoms with different cultures successfully managed the logistics of mining, transporting, and manufacturing over vast areas. How did they coordinate that? There had to have been an agreed upon calendar of sorts.

@jeffreypage1361 3 weeks ago

"It was the most important pigment of the ancient world"
Hematite would like a word...

@Captain_Draco 2 weeks ago

26:57 Mercury isn't the only metal a human can hold as liquid in their hand. Gallium melts at just below a normal body temperature. While it remains at room temperature it will remain solid, but as soon as it starts absorbing body heat it will melt.

@rickpilhorn 2 weeks ago

Mercury reflects so it's the best mirror.

@JonathanWeir-g6q 2 weeks ago

Been thinking about this for months. Thanks

@NduExplainer 11 days ago

What surprised me most was how unusual mercury must have seemed to early humans. A metal that stays liquid at room temperature must have looked almost magical.

@rbtmdl 2 weeks ago

1:54 A human head with two bodies!

@massivereader 2 weeks ago

For a long time small amounts of mercury were used to create the amalgams that were used for filling dental caries (cavities). It made the metal amalgams malleable enough to manually force into the oddly shaped hole and even slightly deform under bite pressure to eliminate any remaining gaps and strongly bond to the remaining tooth structure then harden as the mercury evaporated leaving behind a sturdy metal filling. It was also used in dental labs for casting crowns and was eventually eliminated because epidemiology identified a spike in suicides and mental illness among dentists compared to other medical professions! I think it was the seventies or eighties when they started a public health campaign to replace old amalgam fillings with less toxic substitutes

@scottfranco1962 3 days ago (edited)

Fun fact: The area where I live, Almaden, just below San Jose, California, was named after the New Almaden mercury mine here, which was named for the Almaden mine in Spain. These hills provided a lot of the mercury for the gold rush. The consequence of that is most of the hills and water here are polluted with mercury. The odd side effect of this is the lake here is full of happy fish that nobody fishes for. They are toxic.