Vitreous material was found within the man’s skull in Herculaneum
2000 years ago, a cloud of ashes and overheated volcanic gases exploded the brain of a Herculanean inhabitant and the fragments of his brain became an extremely rare organic glass.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvio, in 79 AD, which destroyed and buried city like Pompeii and Herculaneum, caused the explosion of brain of a man, transforming his fragments into glass.
This is a Unique case of soft tissue transformation into glass. The discovery was revealed this Thursday in a study in the Scientific Reports.
When this man was found in 2020, it was soon realized that the glass -like fragments found inside his skull were an extremely rare organic glass formed from cerebral tissue.
The new study confirms this fact and details the detail as happened.
The investigators concluded that, due to intense heat, the brain exploded, as the water contained in him evaporated rapidly. The fragments that stayed in the skull turned into glass due to the quick cooling.
X -ray analysis and electronic microscopy revealed that the brain must have been heated at more than 510 ° C before cooling quickly, to form a true glass without crystalline structure.
As it is known that the pyroclastic flow of ash and debris that has buried the city only reached 465 ° C, the investigators suggest that there must have been a super hot cloud of ash and gas that surrounded the area, killed the residents and then dissipated quickly-note a.
Speaking to the same magazine, the leader of the investigation, Guido Giordanofrom the University of Rome Tre, in Italy, explained how this phenomenon had occurred.
“It is not the warming process that transforms things into glass. The heating process cooks the material, transforms it into coal, vaporizes it. But it does not make it in glass. To make glass, you need a quick cooling“He clarified.
Incredibly well -preserved brain
Although he suffered catastrophic damage, scientists found the brain very well maintained. In fact, it is still possible to see, in the fragment, complex networks of neurons and axons, as well as common proteins of human brain tissue.
