As reported in the International Herald Tribune, the nearby queen’s tomb, for reasons not yet understood, was much more richly adorned than the king’s and contained much more cacao. In one highly decorated pot, nicknamed “the dazzler,” leftover cacao drink dried up to form a thin brown layer that looks like pristine dark chocolate. Scientifically, it is one of most important chocolate samples in the world, says graduate student Cameron McNeil, who coordinated the exhibit that runs through September 7. She has not tasted it; among other things, it is tainted with mercury from cinnabar that the Maya sprinkled around their tombs.

Chocolate starts as the seeds in the fruits of the cacao tree, a tropical plant that produces flowers and fruit on the trunk. The Maya and their ancestors usually made cacao into a drink, and it was not the liquid that they relished, but its foam. Nisao Ogata, a University of Veracruz professor in Mexico, has been trying to figure out where cacao plants originated and how they got where they are today. One theory is that cacao naturally occurred from the Amazon forests north to Mexico. The other theory is that the plant originated in the Amazon and spread only when humans started cultivating it more widely.

If you want to taste some really good chocolate that’s not contaminated with mercury, you’ve got two options. First, the Museum is offering free chocolate tastings on weekends as part of the exhibit, but it’s serving mostly the inferior Godiva brand. For some REAL chocolate, come on down to my native Tennessee and attend the Ninth Annual RC Cola – Moon Pie Festival on June 21 in historic Bell Buckle, Tennessee. Man, there ain’t nuthin’ like a chocolate Moon Pie washed down with an RC. That’s some fine eatin’.