US EditionAncient Roman Brain Preserved as Glass in Vesuvius Eruption
- Nearly 2,000 years after the Vesuvius volcanic eruption, scientists discovered a man's brain turned to glass when hit by a 510°C ash cloud.
- The pea-sized chunks of black glass were found inside the skull of a 20-year-old man who died in the eruption of 79 AD near Naples.
- Experts believe the hot ash cloud descended first from Vesuvius, probably causing most deaths, before turning the man's brain into glass as it rapidly cooled.
83 Articles
83 Articles
In January 2020 an exceptional discovery was made public: The eruption of Vesuvius, in the year 79 A.D., with its rain of ashes and fire, turned the brain of a victim into glass due to the high temperature, which reached 520 degrees Celsius. During the first day of the eruption, which some date it on August 24 and other researchers place it in autumn, on October 24, the old port city of Herculano had escaped the damage. The rain of pumice stone …
New research shows how the Vesuvius eruption turned a man’s brain to glass
A young man killed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE was likely overcome by a fast-moving cloud of gas at a temperature of more than 500°C in a process that transformed fragments of his brain into glass, according to new research. The man’s remains were discovered in 1961, and in 2020 researchers confirmed that parts of his brain had been turned into glass. This is the only example of vitrified brain matter found to date at any archaeol…
Research Shows How Mount Vesuvius Turned Man’s Brain Into Glass
Fragment of glassy black material extracted from the cranial cavity of a victim of the volcanic eruption at Herculaneum (image via New England Journal of Medicine, all courtesy Pier Paolo Petrone)A team of Italian and German scientists recently determined how the brain of a victim of Mount Vesuvius’s 79 CE eruption managed to be preserved through its conversion into organic glass. Regarded as the first and only known organic glass sample to cont…
They were found in the skull of a man who died after the eruption of Vesuvius.
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