Vesuvius eruption turned victim's brain to glass
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in ancient Rome was so hot that it turned a victim's brain into glass in a process never before seen on Earth, scientists have proved.
A shard of 'obsidian-like' glass was found inside the skull of one victim of the disaster in 79AD which is thought to have killed up to 16,000 people.
Fresh analysis of this shard revealed that it had to have been made through a process of vitrification – rapid heating and cooling – and must have at some point reached more than 500C (932F) before plunging to below zero.
It was previously thought that this shard of glassy brain, which was found in 2020, was caused because the man was buried under an avalanche of hot gas and rock, called the pyroclastic flow, which buried the cities in a layer of debris.
However, these can only reach 465C and therefore would not have been adequate to create the piece of glass.
Scientists from Università Roma Tre in Italy think they have solved this conundrum and believe Vesuvius created a superheated cloud which hit the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum, which is east of the volcano on the coast, before the pyroclastic flow.
This rapid cloud was in excess of the 510C necessary to instantly turn the normal brain into a liquid, therefore allowing for a more rapid cooling, they believe.
The extreme heat and cold in such quick succession turned the liquid brain into the glass found inside the skull and spinal cord of the sleeping man, who was about 20 years old, scientists write in their study.
Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed by the eruption and the victim with the vitrified brain is thought to have been in his bed in the Collegium Augustalium, a building that was dedicated to the cult of the Emperor Augustus, on the main street of Herculaneum.
The researchers used X-ray and electron microscope analysis to study the properties of the glass and find out what conditions would be needed to create it.
They found the conditions needed to turn the organic material into a liquid and then back into a solid in a short enough time period to create the glass are extremely unusual.
More than 2,000 bodies have been found as part of the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, but only this one individual has the glass brain.
'The apparently vitrified remains of brain and spinal cord found in the Collegium Augustalium, is the only occurrence of this type,' the scientists write in the study.
'This uniqueness requires very specific and rare conditions for glass formation and preservation.
'The brain tissue studied here is the only known case of preserved vitrification of human tissue as a result of cooling after heating to very high temperatures.
'This is the only way by which such a glass type can be preserved in the geological or archaeological record and explains why this is a unique occurrence and preserves the ultra-fine neural structure of the brain.'
Prof Guido Giordano, who led the research, said: 'We hypothesise that in 79AD the following scenario occurred: after the first hours of the eruption that produced the eruptive column observed and described by Pliny the Younger on the night of Aug 24, the first pyroclastic flows began.
'The first of these reached the city with a diluted but very hot ash cloud, well over 510°C.
'It left only a few centimetres of very fine ash on the ground, but the thermal impact was terrible and fatal, although brief enough to leave - at least in the only case of the discovery in the Collegium Augustalium – remains of brain still intact.
'The cloud must have then dissipated just as quickly, allowing these remains to cool so rapidly as to trigger the vitrification process.
'Only later in the night was the city completely buried by the deposits of the pyroclastic flows.'
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