CINNABAR

HISTORY, NAME, LOCALITIES: Cinnabar, pronounced SIN-uh-barr, has been known since antiquity.  Its name stems from zinjafh, the Persian word for the mineral.  Important sources are in Spain, Slovenia, China, and the United States (California, Nevada, Texas, Alaska).

MINERALOGY, PROPERTIES, OCCURRENCE: Cinnabar [mercury sulfide, HgS] crystallizes in the trigonal system as rhombohedrons in thick-tabular, columnar, or equant habits.  It is translucent, but can appear transparent along thin edges.  Cinnabar’s scarlet-red to reddish-brown color is diagnostic.  It has a Mohs hardness of 2.0-2.5, a dull luster, perfect cleavage in three directions, an uneven fracture, and a specific gravity of 2.9-3.2.  Cinnabar is a low-temperature mineral that forms in shallow, hydrothermal veins and in certain hot-springs and volcanic environments in association with such minerals as calcite, chalcedonic quartz, and native mercury.  Cinnabar is toxic and should be handled accordingly.

METAPHYSICAL PROPERTIES, LORE, USES: Cinnabar is by far the most common mercury-bearing mineral and the only ore of mercury.  As a source of the mercury used to amalgamate gold, cinnabar was vital to all the great gold rushes since the 1400s.  Cinnabar was once widely used as a red pigment.  Until the early 1900s, physicians administered powdered cinnabar and mercury to treat various ailments, notably syphilis.  Metaphysical practitioners believe that cinnabar attracts wealth and prosperity, while aiding the self-transformations necessary to achieve one’s spiritual destiny.

COLLECTORS’ INFORMATION: Cinnabar is collected for its diagnostic, scarlet-red color and its rarity as one of the few mercury-containing minerals.