Preserved in Glass: How Mount Vesuvius Locked This Roman’s Brain in Time

Nearly 2,000 years ago, Mount Vesuvius erupted, swallowing the nearby Roman towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii in a superheated cloud of ash, dust, and volcanic material. The environment was so hot that a team of researchers say it turned at least one resident’s brain into glass. Not only did the individual’s once-squishy, pinkish-white organ get vitrified into a hard, sparkly black material, but the glassy remains contain preservation down to the microscopic level—that is, the Roman’s axons and neurons were preserved by the extreme conditions of the volcanic eruption. The team’s analysis was published today in Scientific Reports. “Our comprehensive chemical and physical characterization 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, a process of preservation never previously documented for human or an ... Read full article.