Vesuvius has transformed the brain of one victim into a glass

Five years ago, Italian scientists published a study on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79. This described in detail how one explosion, as the man is probably located, was found nearby nearby near the coastal settlement Herculaneum. He lay convicted of his face and buried by ash on a wooden bed in College of the Augustales, a public building dedicated to the cult of Emperor Augustus. Some scholars believe that the man was the carer of the center and slept during the disaster.

In 2018, one researcher discovered black, shiny shards embedded in the skull of the caretaker. The article, published in 2020, speculated that the heat of the explosion was so huge that it combined the victim’s brain tissue.

The criminal analysis of chips similar to obsidian revealed common proteins in the brain tissue and fatty acids found in human hair, while a piece of charred wood discovered near the skeleton, pointed to the thermal reading of 968 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly the temperature of the domestic pizza dome. It was the only known case of supple tissue – and even more so every organic material – it is naturally preserved as glass.

On Thursday, the article published in Nature verified that the fragments are actually a glassy brain. With the support of techniques such as electron microscopy, X -ray spectroscopy with energy dispersion and differential scanning calorimmetry, scientists examined the physical properties of samples taken from glassy fragments and showed how they were created and preserved. “The unique discovery implies unique processes,” said Guido Giordano, a volcanologist at the University of Roma Tre and the main author of The Fresh Study.

First of all, among these processes there is a website in which the material is burned on high heat until it expires. To harden in glass, the substance requires rapid cooling, solidifying at a temperature higher than the environment. This makes organic glass formation tough, said Dr. Giordano, because Witrijacja entails very specific temperature conditions, and the liquid form must cold quickly enough to avoid crystallization as a coviter.

Dr. Giordano and his colleagues concluded that shortly after Vesuvius began to collect debris, a steaming toxic cloud of ash and white pumkts ran through Herculaneum, immediately killing his inhabitants. Claudio Scarpati, a volcanologist at the University of Neapol Federico II, suggested that this so -called pyroclastic density current was the third of 17, which he threw out of Vesuvius.

There were impulses of cooler volcanic residues, absorbing the area. “The inhabitants of Herculaneum were already dead before they were buried,” said Dr. Giordano.

Although the compact -term cloud of ash left only inch or two pollution and petite, if any structural damage, it is said that the caretaker’s brain was heating much above 950 degrees, the glass transition temperature; This broke supple tissue into smaller pieces, without destroying it. Dr. Giordano said that the bones of the skull and spine of the man probably provided the brain.

When the ash cloud dispersed, temperatures quickly returned to normal. In the fresh air, in 950 degrees, the caretaker’s brain famed in glass. Dr. Giordano said that only parts of the body containing some fluid can notice, which is why the caretaker bones remained intact.

Study 2020 met with some skepticism by other scientists, mainly because raw data was not available. Tim Thompson, a court anthropologist from Maynooth University in Ireland, was perhaps the most deafening doubt. This time the results excited him. “I really like to see modern scientific methods used in archaeological context,” he said.

But Dr. Thompson would like to see more evidence and more original data: “Heating and cooling in Herkulaneum after eruption will probably be complicated, and the results of the investigation certainly confirm their conclusions. It only depends on whether the material is the brain. “