Herculaneum, for the first time found remains of a brain of one of the victims of the eruption

Herculaneum, very first discovery of the vitrified brain remains of one of the victims of the eruption, an important discovery.

He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

It had never happened before, a Herculaneum i have been found remains of brain matter of one of the victims oferuption of Vesuvius of 79 AD. The brain was discovered by a team of anthropologists and researchers led by Pier Paolo Petrone, director of the Laboratory of Human Osteobiology and Forensic Anthropology, as part of a study announced by the "New England Journal of Medicine", which also involved Francesco Sirano, Director of the Park, and the Federico II University.

Researchers found in the victim, keeper of the College of Augustales in Herculaneum whose body was discovered in the 60s lying on a bed, glassy material that included proteins and fatty acids typical of brain tissues, as well as components of human hair. Substances that were not found in the surrounding ash or coal, indicating that the material was most likely brain matter.

According to the team, the heat burned the victim's fat and tissues, and the brain yes it would be vitrified, a very rare event in archeology. So much so that it is the first discovery of brain remains vitrified due to the heat caused by an eruption. Transformation due to very short exposure to high temperatures, between 370 and 520 degrees centigrade.

“I realized that something was shining in the ash, among the remains of the exploded skull”, explains Petrone, “they were glassy fragments of black color, like obsidian but very friable. We took some samples: proteomic analysis revealed fatty acids, triglycerides and human hair. It could not have been anything other than brain ”.

Francesco Sirano, Director of the Park, stated that the anthropological sample offered by the Herculaneum site has been extremely interesting since the 80s and now the studies are improving further thanks to the support of increasingly sophisticated laboratory analyzes. Furthermore, he specified that, thanks to the work on degenerated DNA, there could be further clarifications in the future on the origin and degree of kinship of the victims found:

“Since the exceptional discoveries that took place at the beginning of the 80s at the ancient beach, the anthropological sample offered by the site of Herculaneum has proved to be of great interest. Physical anthropology studies are now supported by increasingly sophisticated laboratory analyzes. We are also associating them with innovative research on degenerated DNA which, as the forthcoming works by Dr. Petrone seem to demonstrate, still has some parts of the sequence of the code able to clarify the origin and degree of kinship of the victims found in the remittances. of boats at the ancient beach “.

In short, Herculaneum never ceases to amaze and this important, very first discovery of the genre, is the proof of this.