A young woman who lived and died more than 2,000 years ago left behind remains in China that are unlike anything we’ve seen before.
On her teeth, archaeologists found traces of cinnabar, a bright red form of mercury sulfide. The mineral is toxic because of the mercury it contains; human remains with teeth stained with cinnabar have never before been found.
Even more interesting, while cinnabar and other red pigments are often found in tombs and used for shamanic purposes, a team led by Moritomo of Jilin University in China believes that in this case, the cinnabar was used by the young woman while she was alive.
They dubbed her the “Red Princess of the Silk Road.”
“It is believed that cinnabar was mixed with a binder and then used to dye the young woman’s teeth before death,” the researchers wrote in the paper.
“This is the only known case of intentional use of cinnabar, a biotoxic substance, to dye teeth red. Although this is an isolated case, its significance can be discussed not only in the context of a specific time and place, but also in human culture as a whole.”
The remains of the unnamed woman were found at the Shengjindian Cemetery archaeological site in Xinjiang, located along the ancient Silk Road, a route that our ancestors used to trade goods and migrate long distances across Asia and Europe for more than a thousand years.
The cemetery was excavated in 2007 and 2008, revealing 31 tombs with a large number of grave goods such as silk, pottery, gold and bronze objects, glass and agate beads, etc.
The Red Princess may not have been a true member of the royal family. She was found in a tomb with the remains of three other people, including a child. She was only 20 to 25 years old when she died, about 2,200 to 2,050 years ago.
What interested the archaeologists was the traces of red found on her teeth. There are several different substances that can be used as red pigments, including cinnabar, hematite, and ochre, so they had to run tests to find out what it was.
They used Raman spectroscopy to identify the substance as cinnabar, and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to confirm and rule out environmental contamination.
Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, a method widely used in research, then revealed the presence of a protein substance that may have been used to bond the color to the teeth.
It is not clear what the specific composition of this adhesive was, but it was common in ancient China and was usually composed of animal materials such as collagen, egg white, or milk.
It is not clear why the young woman dyed her teeth red, as red has long been considered an important and auspicious color in China. There may have been spiritual reasons for this practice.
The researchers note that cinnabar plays a significant role in shamanic practices as well as traditional medicine and has psychoactive properties, which may have made it useful as a hallucinogen.
On the other hand, the reason may be aesthetic, as black teeth later became popular in Southeast Asia and Oceania. The woman’s red teeth may have symbolized status, as further indicated by her burial in the cemetery.
This is further emphasized by the fact that cinnabar was not a local commodity. There are no natural deposits of cinnabar in the area where the woman was buried, so cinnabar must have been acquired through trade. The nearest sources of cinnabar would have been central China, the Near East, and Europe.
“Given the geographic distribution of cinnabar and the status of its users, the social status of the tomb owner may have been unusual enough to qualify for this precious resource,” the researchers wrote.
“Additional investigations and discoveries are needed to verify these hypotheses.”
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