Organic Glass Found Among Remains of Roman Guard
A sample of the vitrified brain of a Roman guard after the 79 CE eruption of Mt. Vesuvius
Post Author- Ellis Nolan
One of the most dramatic events in the history of the Roman Empire was the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. It is unknown how many perished during the eruption and its fallout, however, haunting images of contorted Pompeiians frozen in time by searing gas and ash paints an image of hellish, alien conditions. In a bizarre twist of the otherworldly occurrence, scientists have found the only documented instance of a victim whose brain was turned to glass by flows from the eruption.
The remains of the Roman guard and the Collegium Augustalium relative to Mt. Vesuvius
The victim in question was a male guard stationed at the Collegium Augustalium within the Roman city of Herculaneum. Upon imaging the glass found in the skull of the victim with a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), the scientists discovered multiple well-preserved neural structures, such as axons and neurons, visible in the sample. These discoveries helped them rule out other methods for the brain to have been preserved, since those structures would not be intact.
SEM images of the vitrified brain, the arrows in figure F point towards visible axons
For glass to form, a process called vitrification, a material has to be heated to an extremely high temperature, and then cooled, or quenched, extremely fast. In nature, this occurs somewhat often, such as when lightning strikes sand, forming fulgurites, or when magma cools, forming silicic glass. However, this is an extremely uncommon occurrence for material such as a human brain since organic tissue is mostly water. This means for it to be vitrified, it must be quenched below 0 degrees Celsius and stay at that temperature, lest the water return to its liquid state at room temperature.
This Roman guard appears to be a lone exception to the rule, even among the thousands of other human remains examined in Pompeii and Herculaneum. The researchers hypothesized that a stream of hot ash and gas, known as a pyroclastic flow, passed through the victim’s chambers at temperatures exceeding 500 degrees Celsius. This was followed by a much cooler (but still deadly to humans) and more widespread pyroclastic flow, which caused the rapid cooling of the subject.
This bizarre and unique occurrence is yet another example of the epic and otherworldly proportions of the eruption of 79 CE and the sheer power of natural disasters.
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