Five years ago, Italian researchers published a study on the eruption of Monte Vesuvio in 79 AD. Which detailed as a victim of the explosion, presumably a male in the mid -1920s, had been found nearby in the settlement of the sea of Herculaneum. He felt in front and buried by ash on a wooden bed in the college of Augustales, a public building dedicated to the cult of Emperor Augustus. Some scholars believe that man was the custodian of the center and slept at the time of disaster.
In 2018, a researcher discovered black and lucid fragments incorporated inside the custodian skull. The article, published in 2020, hypothesized that the heat of the explosion was so immense that he had merged the victim’s brain tissue in the glass.
The forensic analysis of the chips similar to oxyidian revealed common proteins in the brain tissues and fatty acids found in human hair, while a piece of carbonized wood discovered near the skeleton indicated a thermal reading up to 968 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly the temperature of the dome of a wood pizzeria oven. It was the only known instance of soft tissue – much less any organic material – being naturally preserved as glass.
Thursday, a document published in Nature verified that the fragments are actually glazed brain. Using techniques such as electronic microscopy, X -ray spectroscopy dispersive of energy and the calorimetry of differential scan, scientists examined the physical properties of the samples taken from the glass fragments and have shown how they were trained and preserved. “The unique discovery implies unique processes,” said Guido Giordano, volcanologist at Roma Tre University and main author of the new study.
The main between these processes is the vitrification, with which the material is burned over high heat until it has lived. To harden in the glass, the substance requires quick cooling, to consolidate at a higher temperature than the surroundings. This makes the formation of organic glass demanding, said dr. Giordano, since vitrification involves very specific temperature conditions and the liquid form must cool quickly enough to avoid being crystallized as it consisted of.
Dr. Giordano and his colleagues deduced that shortly after Vesuvius began to bring out the debris, a steaming toxic cloud of ash and white pumice flashed through Herculaneum, killing his inhabitants instantly. Claudio Scarpati, a volcanologist at the University of Naples Federico II, proposed that this so -called pyroclastic density current was the third of 17 that was experienced by Vesuvius.
Impulses of colder volcanic debris followed, swallowing the area. “The residents of Herculaneum had already died when they were buried,” said dr. Giordano.
Although the short -lived ash cloud has left only a thumb or two of debris and little or any structural damage, it is said that it has warmed the brain of the custodian at well over 950 degrees, the glass transition temperature; This broke the soft tissue in smaller pieces without destroying it. Dr. Giordano said that the bones of the skull and the spine of man probably gave a certain protection to the brain.
As the ash cloud was dissipated, the temperatures quickly returned to normal. In the open air, at 950 degrees, the custodian’s brain has fossilized in glass. Only the parts of the body containing some liquids can vitrify themselves, said dr. Giordano, which is why the custodian’s bones remained intact.
The 2020 study was welcomed with a little skepticism by other scientists, largely because the raw data were not available. Tim Thompson, an anthropologist forensic at Maynooth University in Ireland, was perhaps the doubtful most vocal. This time, the results excited him. “I really like to see new scientific methods applied to the archaeological context,” he said.
But Dr. Thompson would like to see more tests and more original data: “Heating and cooling within Herculaneum following the eruption is probably complicated and the results of the investigations certainly support their conclusions. It only depends on the fact that the material is brain. “