Editing Cinnabar (section)

== Decorative use ==
Cinnabar has been used for its color since antiquity in the [[Near East]], including as a [[rouge (cosmetics)|rouge]]-type cosmetic,<ref name=Stewart14/> in the New World since the [[Olmec]] culture, and in China for writing on [[oracle bones]] as early as the [[Zhou dynasty]]. Late in the [[Song dynasty]] it was used in coloring [[lacquerware]].{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}

Cinnabar's use as a color in the New World, since the [[Olmec]] culture,<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,825208,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081205015759/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,825208,00.html|archive-date=December 5, 2008|title=New World's Oldest|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|date=1957-07-29}}</ref> is exemplified by its use in royal [[Maya death rituals|burial chambers]] during the peak of [[Maya civilization]], most dramatically in the 7th-century [[tomb of the Red Queen]] in [[Palenque]], where the remains of a noble woman and objects belonging to her in her sarcophagus were completely covered with bright red powder made from cinnabar.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Healy |first1=Paul F.|first2=Marc G. |last2=Blainey|year=2011|title=Ancient Maya mosaic mirrors: Function, symbolism, and meaning|journal=Ancient Mesoamerica|volume = 22 | issue=2|page=230|doi=10.1017/S0956536111000241 |s2cid=162282151}}</ref>
[[File:Chinese carved cinnabar lacquerware.jpg|thumb|Chinese carved cinnabar lacquerware, late [[Qing dynasty]]. Adilnor Collection, Sweden]]

The most popularly known use of cinnabar is in Chinese [[carved lacquerware]], a technique that apparently originated in the [[Song dynasty]].<ref>{{cite book|editor-link=Jessica Rawson|editor-last=Rawson|editor-first=Jessica |title=The British Museum Book of Chinese Art |page=178 |date=2007 |edition=2nd |publisher=British Museum Press |isbn=978-0-7141-2446-9}}</ref> The danger of mercury poisoning may be reduced in ancient lacquerware by [[Entrainment (engineering)|entraining]] the powdered pigment in [[lacquer]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cst.cmich.edu/users/dietr1rv/cinnabar.htm|first=R. V. |last=Dietrich|year=2005|title=Cinnabar|work=Gemrocks: Ornamental & Curio Stones|publisher=University of Michigan | location = Ann Arbor, Michigan}}</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2015}} but could still pose an [[environmental hazard]] if the pieces were accidentally destroyed. In the modern jewellery industry, the toxic pigment is replaced by a resin-based [[polymer]] that approximates the appearance of pigmented lacquer.{{citation needed|date=July 2015}}

Two female mummies dated AD 1399 to 1475 found in Cerro Esmeralda in Chile in 1976 had clothes colored with cinnabar.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.livescience.com/63181-mummies-poison-clothing.html |first=Mindy |last=Weisberger |title=Dressed to Kill: Chilean Mummies' Clothes Were Colored with Deadly Toxin |website=Live Science|date=27 July 2018 |access-date=26 August 2024}}</ref>