The man’s remains were found resting on a bed in a Herculaneum building. His head can be seen in … [+]
Almost 1.950 years after MT exploded. Vesuvius – leaving a trace of death and destruction that have attracted scientists and historians for centuries – fossilized human remains continue to illuminate the terrible number of disaster.
Scientists have already concluded that the rapid river of grace, lava and gas that flowed into the blood of boiled victims and in the downward made their skulls explode. Now, Italian researchers say they have realized how overwhelming heat from the volcanic eruption is likely to cause the natural organic glass to form in a person’s brain. And they say that what happened to him may have security implications for today.
Wait, again. Glass formed in the human brain? Yes, say researchers, who detail their findings in a new study published Thursday at JOURNAL Scientific reports. In it, they chronicle how they investigate remains, believed to be of a man who died when he was about 20, was found inserted inside pyrooclastic flow Deposits in Herculaneum, a Roman city buried with 20 meters ash when vesuvius exploded in 79 es. Inside his skull, they discovered bright dark gray and black fragments that looked a lot like Obsidian volcanic glass. The discovery amazed them, causing further investigations.
How was the glass formed?
As shocking and strange as to the presence of glass in the man’s brain, the team’s research led them to an explanation that follows the well -known principles. Glass forms when sand and/or rocks are heated to high temperatures, melting and losing their crystalline structure. As the mixture cools, it hardens in a new form.
Vesuvius researchers conclude that the victim’s body underwent a similar process when an overheated but short -lived cloud of ash wrapped Herculaneum, leaving intact structures but killing residents from thousands in the first deadly event after the explosion. An unfortunate resident who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time was the man with the visible glass brain.
Scientists suggest that the ash cloud quickly raised his body above 950 degrees Fahrenheit before cooling down rapidly to ambient temperatures while the Cloud was distributed. The young man had no sand or rock in it, but his soft, water -rich tissue of the brain hardly hardened like those materials when turned into glass.
Brain tissue is expected to burn in such extreme heat. However, the thick bones of the skull and the back of this particular man are likely to protect his brain from burning completely, scholars say. This allowed the brain tissue, though damaged and separated, to warm and then cool, forming unique organic glass.
“The brain tissues studied here are the only known case of preserved human tissue vitrification as a result of cooling after heat to very high temperatures,” the study led by the geologist of Roma Guology Giordano.
An organic glass fragment found inside the skull of a MT vesuvius victim in Herculaneum.
The soft tissue turned into a glass mark a strange and wonderful finding, all the more so because transforming into glass, a process known as vitrification, rarely happens in nature. This man, of course, faced very unusual and specific conditions.
To find out more about how the fragments were formed and remained preserved, the researchers analyzed them using X -rays and the microscopy of the electrons, exposing them to different temperatures to see how they behaved.
“It is amazing to see the microscopic nerve structures of an ancient brain preserved,” Giordano said in an interview.
Critics are not convinced
The carbonated body of the victim was first discovered in the 1960s lying on a wooden bed buried under volcanic grace at Collegegium Augustalium, a public building dedicated to Emperor Augustus, where the young man is likely to serve as a guard. But it did not pass until decades later, in 2020, a team observed and depicted parts in disordered form Inside his skull, the same group that recently rebuilt the sequence of events leading to the death of the young man.
Critics including archaeologists and chemists have asked if the dark shards found in the victim’s skull were actually brain tissue. In a study published in 2020 in the journal Science and archaeological research technology, They say that the researchers did not make available their raw data and argue that the evidence they present does not support their conclusion of vitrification caused by the heat of the human brain tissue. Thursday’s study seeks to strengthen the claims that he makes.
Regardless, every skeleton discovered in Herculaneum and Pompeii offers a powerful look at the personal tragedies of that day, reminding us that the story is made up of real people with their aspirations, their difficulties and their destinies.
“Cataclism was an unimaginable situation of loss and destruction of man. We still want to know the human side of that story, “said the University of the University of Kentucky Brent Seales. Seales is a co -founder of The Vesuvius Challenge, an international competition that touches the teaching of machinery and the vision of the computer to decipher the contents of herculaneum springs in the explosion.
But while the man, whose brain is allegedly addressed to Glass, adds to our understanding of the past, he may have lessons for today, Giordano said.
“In the active volcanic areas, while it is essential to evacuate all people perhaps in the way of pyrochlastic flows, it is also essential to adapt houses as shelters capable of resisting heat, as it is made for fires,” he said. “In this way, if one will be caught in a hot cloud of ash, as was the case with the ancient novel unfortunately in Herculaneum, there may be opportunities to survive and wait for salvation.”
Nearly two millennia after Vesuvius broke out, her victims still have a lot to discover.