ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Study of chronic mercury exposure in ancient populations from the cinnabar mining.

Abstract: Cinnabar is a natural mercury sulfide (HgS) mineral mined from the ancient past for use as a red pigment for body paint and ceramics, in jewellery-making and in medicinal treatments. Mercury from cinnabar can be absorbed by ingestion and through the skin and can accumulate in bones. Mass-selective neutron spectroscopy on VESUVIO will be applied to study the level of mercury in human bones from the Spaccasasso cave on the Uccellina Mountains (Alberese – Grosseto, Tuscany, Italy). The site dates back from the late-4th to early-3rd millennium BC, and after mining exploitation it was used for funerary practices. Several archaeological questions regarding the buried individuals are still unanswered: were these populations engaged in mining or not? Detection of mercury and its stable isotopes may help to elucidate these archaeological queries.

Principal Investigator: Dr Giulia Festa
Experimenter: Professor Carla Andreani
Experimenter: Dr Nicoletta Volante
Experimenter: Dr Maria Paula Marques
Experimenter: Miss Laura Arcidiacono
Experimenter: Professor Roberto Senesi
Local Contact: Professor Giovanni Romanelli
Local Contact: Dr Antonella Scherillo

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1920062

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1920062

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
Select the data format above to find out more about it.

Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Dr Giulia Festa et al; (2019): Study of chronic mercury exposure in ancient populations from the cinnabar mining., STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1920062

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.