In the “ghost town” of Herculaneum, one of the Roman metropolises destroyed by the supervolcano Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago, archaeologists have picked up pieces of black glᴀss. The results of the analysis were shocking: it was the human brain.
According to Professor Tim Thompson, an applied biological anthropologist from Teesside University (UK) who led the study, this is a consequence of the sudden heating process: before the lava could be buried, the 20-year-old, as well as many others, suffered a terrible heat wave that caused the temperature to quickly rise to 520 degrees Celsius.
Ghost Town Herculaneum, although much less magnificent than the neighboring city of Pompeii, is enough to stun after nearly 2,000 years of desolation – pH๏τo: HERCULANEUM BLOG
Like some others, the unfortunate boy’s head exploded, but the brain had time to go through a process called “vitrification”. On the shore near the room where he died, there were other people who were also subjected to the heat wave, but it seems that they were burned slowly, so the vitrification process did not occur.
A piece of the glᴀss brain of a smart Roman boy – pH๏τo provided by the research team
Most surprisingly, the boy’s neural network was preserved intact, giving archaeologists a unique opportunity to understand the cognitive abilities of ancient people. Scientists were able to easily observe through the glᴀss block, and determined that it was a highly organized nervous system. This is not too surprising, because at that time, when most of the world still existed a rather primitive, tribal society, magnificent and extremely civilized Roman cities sprang up here.
The remains sitting and talking, not yet aware of the sudden death are a traumatic image that makes a strong impression on the Roman city devastated by a supervolcano – pH๏τo provided by the research team
The supervolcano disaster Vesuvius, now in Italy, occurred in 79 AD, and has been featured in movies many times. In the ghost town of Herculaneum as well as the city of Pompeii and many neighboring towns, many people are found in many strange ways of dying, of which the most sympathetic are still people who are still in the same position sleeping, working, hugging each other… when volcanic ash suddenly fell and caused them to “petrify”.
