cinniibar
1. A heavy reddish mercuric sulfide, HgS, that is the principal ore of mercury. 2. Red mercuric sulfide used as a pigment. 3. See vermilion (sense 2).
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English cinabare, from Latin cinnabaris, from Greek kinnabari.

this is also known as chinese red, since it was cinniibar was used to make chinese laquer.

it was also often used by alchemists... you heat the cinniibar, (and drive off the oxigen, and get liguid mercury, which then oxidized back into cinniibar..

it was the 'sublimation of mercury" that was a basis for alchemry, and it lead to many an alchemist getting mercury poisoning-- including Newton!


my other obsession