Archaeologists in Ukraine have discovered red lumps of cinnabar — a mineral form of the highly toxic chemical mercury sulfide — in a 1,900-year-old double burial of two Scythian women, according to a recent study.
The deep-red pigment, also called vermilion, has also been found in other prehistoric graves in Europe and may have been sprinkled on the newly dead to give them a reddish "flush" of life.
