Mount Vesuvius turned a man’s brain into glass when it erupted 2,000 years ago

Mount Vesuvius was so hot it turned a man’s brain into glass when it erupted, fascinating new research shows.

A piece of dark glass was found in the man’s skull, who died in the Roman city Herculaneum almost 2,000 years ago.

This is the first evidence of a fossilised brain being uncovered around the volcano and is the first time ever that it has been documented.

But how on earth does something like this happen?

Researchers from Roma Tre University in Italy say that it was likely caused by a very hot and short-lived ash clouds, that reached temperatures of 510°C.

This is because the brain can only become glass when it reaches these kind of temperatures.

It means the man was not killed by lava avalanches, hot gases or ash that buried Pompeii because the temperatures of these only reached 465°C.

They also analysed the fragments of glass found in the skull and spinal cord.

The researchers found that the bones in his skull and spinal cord protected the brain from thermal breakdown, allowing the glass to stay intact.

They wrote in the journal Scientific Reports: ‘Although human brain preservation is documented in the archaeological record, it is a relatively infrequent phenomenon.

‘Our comprehensive chemical and physical characterisation of the material sampled from the skull of a human body buried at Herculaneum by the 79 CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius shows compelling evidence that these are human brain remains, composed of organic glass formed at high temperatures.

‘This is a process of preservation never previously documented for human or animal tissue, neither brain nor any other kind.

‘Later, Herculaneum was progressively buried by thick pyroclastic flow deposits, but at lower temperatures, so that the unique presence of a vitrified [turned into glass] brain could have been preserved until today.’

Pier Paolo Petrone, one of those involved in the study, added: ‘The glass formed as a result of this process allowed for an integral preservation of the biological brain material and its microstructures.

‘The only other type of organic glass we have evidence of is that produced in some rare cases of vitrification of wood, sporadic cases of which have been found at Herculaneum and Pompeii.

‘However, in no other case in the world have vitrified organic human or animal remains ever been found.’

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius meant several Roman towns and settlements were destroyed and Pompeii and Herculaneum were completely buried.

The remains of more than 1,500 people were found at Pompeii and Herculaneum. The total death toll from the eruption remains unknown to this day.

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