by Joseph E. Mason
The Nazca Sun-Star
as the Magic Square of Mercury
by Joseph E. Mason
Introduction
The most unusual of the Nazca Line Markings in Peru is the Sun-Star glyph. The graphic at the top of the page is a photograph of the main part of the marking. The graphic below has the main part outlined in black.
The rectangle with the twelve small boxes at the corners, along with the cross in the center, seems to suggest the Magic Square of Mercury.
This is quite strange, because the Magic Square tradition apparently started hundreds of years before, on the Eurasia continent.
A number of crop circle formations have similarities to various aspects of the Sun-Star glyph.
Analyzing the suggested Magic Square of Mercury reveals the number 13 and multiples, such as 39 and 78. Certain crop circle formations indicated the same type of numbers and shapes. There was a strong hint that the number 39 and multiples associates with the Triplet Numbers (111, 222, etc.) by combining with multiples of 72 (39 + 72 = 111).
This article explains the details of these seeming connections.
Tree of Life and Planetary Connections
Magic Squares are associated with the various spheres (sephiroth) of the Tree of Life, based on the number of the sphere (sephira). Most of the spheres are associated with the traditional "planets" that included the Sun and Moon.
The eighth sphere of the Tree of Life is called Hod, and is associated with Aaron, the first High Priest, and brother of Moses. The assigned planet is Mercury. Each of these spheres are also associated with a shape, mostly stars, with the number of points matching the sphere number.
The Magic Square of Mercury
The Magic Square of Mercury is an 8 x 8 grid, with the numbers from 1 to 64 placed within it, so that each row, column, and diagonal adds to 260. The total of all the numbers add up to 2080.
Other numbers featured in Magic Squares are --
* The sum of any symmetrical group of four numbers, in this case 130.
* The sum of perimeter values, in this case 910.
The Nazca Sun-Star as the Magic Square of Mercury
The graphic below shows the Magic Square of Mercury with the corner and central areas colored in a way that matches the Nazca Sun-Star glyph --
Each of the corner numbers, marked in yellow, from upper-left, clockwise, add to --
115 + 120 + 80 + 75 = 390
Each set of three corner numbers are a symmetrical group of four numbers, with each set totaling 130, with the grand total being 4 x 130 = 390.
The central cross, marked in blue, composed of 12 small squares, also add to 390. The inner four numbers add to 29 + 28 + 36 + 37 = 130, which is one-third of 390. The eight small blue squares surrounding the inner four add to 44 + 45 + 38 + 30 + 21 + 20 + 27 + 35 = 260, which is twice 130.
The total of all the 24 marked (yellow + blue) numbers amounts to 390 + 390 = 780.
The 40 small white squares add to 1300 (1300 + 780 = 2808).
The total of the numbers (2080) minus 390 (the value of the corner numbers or the cross numbers) amounts to 2080 - 390 = 1690. The number 169 is the square of 13, and has some special associations (see below).
Remember that each row, column, and diagonal of this Magic Square adds to 260 . It seems significant that the eight small squares surrounding the inner four of the cross, add to the same number as the columns, rows, and diagonals.
It also seems significant that the Mayan Calendar features 260 days, called the Tzolk'in. The tzolk'in has a cycle of 20 named days combined with another cycle of 13 numbers, somewhat similar to months and days.
This seems to suggest that whoever created this Nazca land marking was aware of the tradition of symmetrical groupings in Magic Squares, and intended to draw attention to certain numbers, such as 13, 260, and 390.
Crop Circle Connections
Nazca Sun-Star Crop Circle Formation
Around 30 July 2000, a crop circle formation appeared at Blackland, Morgan's Hill, Wiltshire --
image credit: Lucy Pringle
No doubt that it was intended to represent the Nazca Sun-Star.
Connections to the Triplet Numbers
Two similar crop circle formations appeared in 1999, one displaying multiples of 13 and the other multiples of 72. Note that there is a somewhat similar geometry to the Nazca Sun-Star. The left one can fit inside the right one, like a key in a lock. Because the left image looks like a pyramid from above, with small pyramids at the corners, I call these "Quintuplet Pyramid" types. I consider the left one "male" and the right one "female."
These were featured in my article about 444 and the Triplets. The image on the left has a total of 156 small circles. At each corner are 9 small circles and 30 even smaller circles, for a total of 39 (39 x 4 = 156).
The image on the right has 288 small circles, 72 in each quarter. Combining the total circles in both images amounts to 156 + 288 = 444. The total circles in the quadrants of both circles amounts to 39 + 72 = 111. This gave me the idea to create the Triplet Table --
The table includes 72 and 36 multiples on the left and 13, 39, and 19.5 multiples in the center, and 37 multiples on the right, along with the sums that add to the triplet numbers.
The images below demonstrate the similarities between the 1999 male Quintuplet Pyramid crop formation (left) and the Nazca Sun-Star as the Magic Square of Mercury (right).
I removed 16 small squares, four on each side, from the image on the right, to show the similarities. Removing the associated numbers from the total gives --
2080 - 520 = 1560
This seems significant because there was a total of 156 small circles in the crop formation.
Ancient Numbers and Ezekiel's Wagon
The reason for including 36 multiples is that the very ancient numbering system found around the world, seems to be based on a 360-degree circle with a double five-pointed star inside --
The 19.5 multiples (half of 39) were added because it associates with a significant symbol -- the double tetrahedron inside a sphere. Three points of each tetrahedron fall at approximately 19.5-degrees --
This is thought by some to represent the shape of the energy points within planetary spheres, including the Sun.
The same type of shape is said by New Agers to be the Merkaba, a "divine light vehicle" or "The Vehicle Of Ascension."
In Jewish mysticism, the Merkabah associates with Ezekiel's vision of the Four Living Creatures, sometimes called Ezekiel's Wagon, like a four-wheel chariot. It is said to represent the ascent to Heaven.
My inspirational path led to this image of Ezekiel's vision --
It is formed from four triangle (2D tetrahedrons) similar to the 1991 Barbury Castle crop circle formation --
The Merkabah of Ezekiel design above is somewhat similar to the geometry of the Nazca Sun-Star. These designs look like pyramids as viewed from above.
In 2005, a crop circle formation appeared at Lurkley Hill, that was quite similar in design tomy concept of Ezekiel's Merkabah. The whole story includes the ancient idea of making the order of the Heavens apparent on Earth -- also symbolized by the New Jerusalem design. The Heavens include the twelve signs of the Zodiac.
Hundred Acres Crop Formation
Around 3 July 2005, a double box type crop formation appeared at Hundred Acres --
image credit: Lucy Pringle
This formation also has geometric similarities to the Nazca Sun-Star. It is clearly related to the two 1999 "Quintuplet Pyramid" types above. This graphic shows the two 1999 Quintuplet Pyramid type formations inside the central square of the 2005 Hundred Acres formation --
The "male" Quintuplet is in red and the "female" in blue.
Mythical Connections
The inner portion of the Hundred Acres formation is similar to certain Navaho Sand paintings, such as this one, called, "People of the Myth" --
The image on the right is the center portion of the Hundred Acres crop formation. The mythical image depicts four couples around a square. Interestingly, there were four couples aboard Noah's Ark -- Noah and his wife, and his three sons and their wives. The number eight is often said to represent a new beginning.
Quintuplet of Quintuplets Crop Circle
Some 24 days after the Hundred Acres formation -- around 27 July 2005 -- the "Quintuplet of Quintuplets" crop formation appeared at Avebury Manor, Wiltshire -- on the left here --
image credit: Lucy Pringle
The illustration on the right demonstrates how the Quintuplet of Quintuplets formation (in red) fits inside the Hundred Acres formation. Simple quintuplet set types of crop circles have been common since the early days of the phenomenon.
Double Box Type Crop Circles
Over the years, there have been many Double Box - eight-pointed star type crop circles. A number of them appeared in the year 2000.
The Eight Roads to Heaven
There is a double box glyph on page 67 of the The Sacred Symbols of Mu. To the ancient Egyptians, it represented "The Eight Roads to Heaven."
The Breath of the Compassionate
The Sufi creation concept -- The Breath of the Compassionate -- also involves the double boxes, along with a wide "X" shape, to symbolize how the creation is created in each moment.
The star portion represents the outward breath. The "X" shape represents the inward breath.
The "X" Crop Circle Formation
image credit: Lucy Pringle
An "X" type crop formation appeared some seventeen days after the Hundred Acres formation -- around July 20, 2005 -- at Kings Worthy, near Winchester, Hampshire. This seemed to confirm the "Breath of the Compassionate" interpretation of the double box types of crop formations.
Comparison of Images
The image below compares the Sufi "Breath of the Compassionate" image, above, to two crop circle formations placed together -- the Hundred Acres formation and the "X" shape formation --
The Meaning of the Divine Breath of Creation
Here are a few excerpts from Sufi: Expressions of the Mystic Quest by Laleh Bakhtiar, concerning the "Breath of the Compassionate --
| There is a Tradition of the Prophet in which he says, 'God created the universe through the Breath of the Compassionate.' The Compassionate (Rahman) is the highest of the Names, Ideas or Archetypes. Through the Name of Compassion, the Absolute breathes out upon the other Names or Archetypes. This breathing out is a means of bringing things into existence. By means of the Command 'Be!' the Absolute through Compassion sends into the external, phenomenal world that which has been compressed within it. The Divine Breath pervades the Universe. Just as breath is exhaled and so forms syllables and words, the Breath of the Compassionate, in exhaling Words (intelligible forms), brings the sensible form into being. This Divine Breath is Nature itself, just as the Breath contains all the forms of the universe in a potential state and actualizes them by exhaling, so Nature holds all forms of expression in a potential state of preparedness in which they await the appearance of the Breath of the Compassionate, the Spirit, the Logos, in order to be known. Everything contains the Presence of the Divine. The ideas of intellections in our minds are like those Ideas in the mind of the Absolute. A word contains both a meaning and the thing itself, which has a form. The meaning is permanent, the Divine Idea; the form the thing takes is but a shadow, transient. The Ideas are made temporal through the Breath of the Compassionate. In Sufism, Christ symbolizes the particular Divine Quality of the Breath of the Compassionate, for it is through the Breath that all things receive life. 'When the Word of God comes into the heart of anyone and the Divine Inspiration enters his heart and soul, its nature is such that there is produced in him a spiritual child having the breath of Jesus that revives the dead.' (R. Nicholson, Mathnawl.) The manifestation of actualized individual things occurs continually, as in successive waves. At every moment creation is annihilated and re-created. With each heartbeat we die and are reborn. The world is in intense motion, ascending towards the vertical axis within all things to meet the descent of the Absolute in manifested forms. The flow occurs in such an orderly, successive manner, according to definite patterns, that we are unaware of it, and the world appears to us to stay the same. This ever-new creation is a process which only the human form endowed with consciousness of Self can come to know. |
The Cube-Sphere of Walter Russell
When I first read about the Breath of the Compassionate, I recalled reading of a similar idea years before, in 1990. It was in the book, Channeling, by Jon Klimo. Jon quotes Walter Russell, from a book published in 1947, of messages "of God." Russell claimed that the messages conveyed to him a direct knowledge of how the basic universal forces of electromagnetism, gravity, and atomic energy really operate. He wrote --
| In My universe there is but one form from which all forms appear. That one form is the pulsing cube-sphere, two halves of the heartbeat of My dual thinking. All forms pulse, therefore, all forms are two, one form for the inbreathing pulse, which generates, and one for the outbreathing, radiating one. The cube is the sphere expanded by the outward breath to black rest in cold space, and the sphere is the cube compressed to the incandescene of white-hot suns by the inward breath. For, to thee I again say, all things are Light; and Light separates not; nor has it bounds; nor is it here and not there. Man may weave the patterns of his Self in Light of Me and of his image in divided lights of Me, e'en as the sun sets up its bow of many hues from divided Light of Me, but man cannot be apart from Me, as the spectrum cannot be apart from the Light of Me ... Verily, I say, every wave encompasseth every other wave unto the One; and the many are within the One, e'end down to the least waves of Me. |
In two dimensions, the cube is represented by a square shape, and the sphere is represented by a circle. Perhaps the Nazca Sun-Star and some of the crop circle formations are related to the message given to Walter Russell.
Additional information about the crop circle formations discussed above can be found with this link --
444, The Triplets, & The Creation
The Dome of the Rock Connection
Around 17 August 2007, a crop circle appeared at Woodborough Hill, Wiltshire (the upper right graphic above), that contained an eight-pointed star and a double box pattern within it.
Around that time, I read an article about the design of the Dome of the Rock (above upper left) in Jerusalem. The design is quite like the 2007 crop circle formation. I included this information in an article I wrote in 2009.
As I was searching for information in writing this article, I found another article that proposes the Dome of the Rock design is like the Nazca Sun-Star --
The Dome of the Rock and the Sun-Star and Cross at Nazca Connection
The 8 x 8 Grid Crop Formation
Around 9 August 2012, an 8 x 8 grid type crop formation appeared at Cheesefoot Head, near Winchester, Hampshire --
image credit: Jason Patterson
Obviously, this fits quite well with the Magic Square of Mercury. It was said to be a type ofSierpinski curve. I placed colored circles on the grid to show the corresponding marked areas of the Nazca Sun-Star --
The 6 x 6 Grid Formation
Around 23 August 2012, a 6 x 6 grid type crop formation appeared at Oxleaze Copse, Wiltshire --
image credit: TJ Newton
It is somewhat like the Nazca Sun-Star. I filled some of the circles with colors to show the similarity. This grid is quite like the Magic Square of the Sun --
This Magic Square is associated with sphere six of the Tree of Life, which is in the center of the Tree. The numbers 1 through 36 are placed in the grid so that each row, column, and diagonal adds to 111. The sum of any symmetrical group of four numbers adds to 74. The sum of perimeter values is 370. The total adds to 666 -- that famous "Mark of the Beast" number in Revelation 13:18 --
| This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six. |
Students of Kabbalism may recognize that these words of Saint John of Patmos suggest the Tree of Life. This graphic shows the upper triad of the Tree --
The word Wisdom is associated with sphere 2 of the Tree, the first masculine emanation. The word Understanding is associated with sphere 3 of the Tree, the first feminine emanation.
Solomon used the expression “a Tree of Life” four times in the book of Proverbs (3:18; 11:30; 13:12; 15:4). Proverbs 3:13-18 includes the words describing spheres 2 and 3 of the Tree --
| Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gets understanding, for the gain from it is better than gain from silver and its profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy. |
The 6 x 6 x 6 Cube Grid Crop Formation
Around 26 August 2012, a 6 x 6 x 6 cube grid type crop circle formation appeared at Hackpen Hill, near Broad Hinton. Wiltshire --
image credit: Simon Brown
The suggestion is that there are 216 (6 x 6 x 6) small cubes within the big cube. Each small cube has six sides, giving a total of 1296 (6 x 6 x 6 x 6) small sides. These numbers are quite significant, as reported in several articles and a video -- here and here and here.
Each side of the cube is a 6 x 6 grid, like the Magic Square of the Sun. The emphasis seems to be on the perimeter -- and therefore perhaps the sum of the values -- which total 370.
The image on the right shows a yellow cross in the middle composed of twelve small squares, in the same manner suggested by the Nazca Sun-Star. The numbers in the cross sum to 222 and the remainder (in blue) to 444, for the total of 666.
I first read about Magic Squares in the book, Jesus Christ, Sun of God, by David Fideler. The subject starts on page 238.
Note how the sum of any symmetrical group of four numbers adds to 74 -- and how each pair of those symmetrical four numbers add to 37, such as 1 + 36 and 6 + 31. "The Triplet Table" shown above, also features the number 37. Multiples of 37 -- in a 3,6,9 skip sequence -- result in the Triplet Numbers (3 x 37 = 111, 6 x 37 = 222, etc.).
The Magic Square of Mercury also associates with the Triplet Numbers, by the multiples of 13 -- specifically 39 (39 + 72 = 111, etc.). Notably, the number 72 is twice 36, the numbers used in the Magic Square of the Sun.
If the six sides of the crop circle cube are assumed to be identical, then the total of the perimeter numbers total 6 x 370 = 2220. The remainder -- the numbers in the inner 4 x 4 grid total 6 x 296 = 1776, which is twice 888, and the year of the United States Declaration of Independence.
The image on the right has the yellow cross formed with 12 small boxes. Figuring all six sides, the total of small boxes in the six crosses comes to 6 x 12 = 72, which is also featured in the Triplet Table. The sum of the numbers within those 72 small boxes is 6 x 222 = 1332, which is twice 666.
The remaining small boxes (in blue) total 6 x 24 = 144, which is twice 72 and a significant ancient number. The sum of the numbers within the 144 small boxes comes to 6 x 444 = 2664, which is 4 x 666.
Ending Notes
(for initial article)
Just before finishing this article, a meaningful coincidence happened. While researching the meaning of a dream, I found this article --
The Aztec Calendar Stone is not Aztec and it is not a Calendar
By Douglas L. Bundy
I was searching for information about Quetzalcoatl (or Kukulcan), his dark twin, and the connection to Venus, the Morning Star -- which also connects Biblically to Jesus and Lucifer.
In addition to important information about those subjects, Douglas shows how the Aztec Calendar Stone indicates the numbers 520 x 4 = 2080. I found it amazingly coincidental and synchronistic that the same number (2080) is the sum of the numbers of the Magic Square of Mercury -- which seems to be the basis of the Nazca Sun-Star. I often say that I take coincidences as guideposts and confirmations.
There are obviously many more areas to explore on these subjects. A number of other crop circle formations were grid-like and/or cubical. There is a tradition of showing a cube in the center of the Tree of Life --
The New Jerusalem is also said to be a cube.
In an article about 777, I suggested an interpretation about the Triplet Numbers. The number 666 seems to represent a karmic stage of spiritual evolution. A balance is achieved at the 777 stage, followed by a new beginning, represented by 888.
The first six stages, followed by the seventh, are symbolized by the days of creation in Genesis, and by the Seed of Life -- which is part of the Flower of Life series, which includesMetatron's Cube.
The Symbolism of Mercury
20 May 2015
This is the first update of this article, which was originally uploaded on 23 April 2015. My plan to add this portion about the symbolism of Mercury was speeded up by a coincidence.
On 28 April 2015, I read a Facebook post about liquid mercury being found under theTemple of the Feathered Serpent (Quetzalcoatl) at the ancient site of Teotihuacan, in Mexico. This "coincidentally" fits in with various symbols that came my way over the years.
In 1990, when I began to experience many dreams followed by coincidences, I dreamed of seeing a statue of the Roman god, Mercury, standing on top of a domed building, that looked like the Jefferson Memorial, in Washington, D.C. He wore a helmet with wings and had wings on his feet. I did not know much about him, other than he was said to be a messenger of the gods.
By late 1991, Mercury began to be more importamt to me. One reason was the possible links to dual-sexed symbolism via Hermaphroditos the son of his Greek counterpart,Hermes.
Adam and Eve Represent One Person
In 1990, I had a number of dreams about couples, which I interpreted as marriages or lovers. My interpretation became modified greatly when Jeff told me his dream --
| I was on a starship in space with other people. An extremely important message was trying to come in but it couldn't until we first ejected the garbage. I ran frantically and managed to eject it. The message came in over a console with lights flashing. A doctor appeared and led the crew into a bedroom. He began to work on a yard-high mound of jelly-like substance at the foot of the empty bed. Suddenly, I saw a human-sized hand puppet, a male/female pair with only one hand-hole. They fell back into a vat of water. I went over and looked down at them under the water and knew they had to change. They had to change. |
I realized that dreams of couples, marriages, lovers, and such, could be symbolic of the male/female duality within. I was inspired to write the ideas in my notebook. I speculated that Adam and Eve may represent one person, with a large rational aspect and a small, rib-sized, intuitive/dreaming aspect.
A coincidence happened some weeks later. I was at the library, looking at some books about mythology. I suddenly got the urge to spin around and look at the books behind me. They were about religion. I quickly selected The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels. The coincidence came when I read this in the book --
| Even more remarkable is the gnostic poem caned the 'Thunder, Perfect Mind'. This text contains a revelation spoken by a feminine power: I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore, and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am (the mother) and the daughter.... I am she whose wedding is great, and I have not taken a husband.... I am knowledge, and ignorance.... I am shameless; I am ashamed. I am strength, and I am fear.... I am foolish, and I am wise. . .. I am godless, and I am one whose God is great. What does the use of such symbolism imply for the understanding of human nature? One text, having previously described the divine Source as a 'bisexual Power', goes on to say that 'what came into being from that Power that is, humanity, being one is discovered to be two: a male-female being that bears the female within it'. This refers to the story of Eve's 'birth' out of Adam's side (so that Adam, being one, is 'discovered to be two', an androgyne who 'bears the female within him'). Yet this reference to the creation story of Genesis 2 (an account which inverts the biological birth process, and so attributes to the male the creative function of the female) is unusual in gnostic sources. More often, gnostic writers refer to the first creation account in Genesis 1:26-7 ('Then God said, Let us make man [adam] in our image, after our likeness ... in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them'). Rabbis in Talmudic rimes knew a Greek version of the passage that suggested to Rabbi Samuel bar Nachman, influenced by Plato's myth of androgyny, that when the Holy one ... first created mankind, he created him with two faces, two sets of genitals, four arms and legs, back to back. Then he split Adam in two, and made two backs, one on each side. |
A few years later, I found similar ideas in the works of H. P. Blavatsky. This is an example from Isis Unveiled -- Vol. 2, pages 171, 172 --
| With the Ophites and other Gnostics who took their models direct from more ancient originals, the unrevealed Bythos and her male counterpart produce Ennoia, and the three in their turn produce Sophia,* thus completing the Tetraktys, which will emanate Christos, the very essence of the Father Spirit. As the unrevealed One, or concealed Logos in its latent state, he has existed from all eternity in the Arba-Il, the metaphysical abstraction; therefore, he is ONE with all others as a unity, the latter (including all) being indifferently termed Ennoia, Sige (silence), Bythos, etc. As the revealed one, he is Androgyne, Christos, and Sophia (Divine Wisdom), who descend into the man Jesus. Both Father and Son are shown by Irenaeus to have loved the beauty (formam) of the primitive woman,* who is Bythos -- Depth -- as well as Sophia, and as having produced conjointly Ophis and Sophia (double-sexed unity again), male and female wisdom, one being considered as the unrevealed Holy Spirit, or elder Sophia -- the Pneuma -- the intellectual "Mother of all things"; the other the revealed one, or Ophis, typifying divine wisdom fallen into matter, or God-man -- Jesus, whom the Gnostic Ophites represented by the serpent (Ophis). * Sophia is the highest prototype of woman — the first spiritual Eve. In the Bible the system is reversed and the intervening emanation being omitted, Eve is degraded to simple humanity |
1991 Barbury Castle Crop Formation
The Alchemical Trinity
Mercury started to became more important in September, 1991, after I learned about the great triangular crop circle formation that appeared at Barbury Castle --
Over a period of years, I found the various associations depicted in the image above.
According to an article in a crop circle journal, the circular glyphs at the corners of the triangle were said to have parallels in alchemical signs, like this:
North - The Sun, sulphur
Lower left - The Moon, salt
Lower right - Mercury, quicksilver
A very similar glyph was found in an old book of the works of Georgius von Welling (1655-1727) - The Magical Qabbalistical, and Theosophical Writings of Georgius von Welling on the Subject of Salt, Sulfer and Mercury.
One of the goals of Alchemy was the transmutation of a base metal, like lead, into a noble metal, like gold.
Another goal was to find a substance that gives eternal life. This became centered oncinnabar, the "Hellfire Stone" -- which is the ore of mercury, mercuric sulfide, also called quicksilver.
The corresponding Christian Trinity would be Father (Sun/Sulfer), Son (Mercury/Quicksilver), and Holy Spirit (Moon/Salt).
This Mercury connection, along with the material covered above, seemed to suggest that the "Son" of the Trinity is actually an androgen "Child" who has the attributes of both Father and Mother -- just as with all living human beings.
In 1993, the dream of a young man confirmed another idea concerning Mercury -- that he Roman God also symbolized the "Triple Male Trinity." The story is in this article --
Dreams of the Triple Male Trinity
Other dreams and findings seemed to suggest that the Triple Male is represented by the triangle and the Triple Female (or Triple Goddess) is represented by the "Y" within the triangle.
Cinnabar Use by the Mayans
A decade or so ago, I saw a television program about the ancient Mayans. At one point, the story was told about how the Mayans used the vermilion red dust of cinnabar as a royal tomb adornment and on the skeletal remains. The Maya associated the color red with blood, death and rebirth. It was considered a sacred life force. Perhaps the most famous of this type of Mayan burials is the Tomb of the Red Queen.
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