Scientists finally uncover how man’s brain turned into glass after 2,000 years

Around 2,000 years ago, a man who died in near Pompeii experienced a rare transformation – his brain somehow turned into glass.

For many years, scientists questioned how such a thing could have happened, but now researchers have offered a new explanation.

The initial confusion stemmed from the fact that the pyroclastic flows of , ash, and gas that buried him would not have been hot enough, nor would they have cooled quickly enough to turn the brain into glass.

However, now it is claimed that the must have been immediately preceded by a superheated cloud of ash that at first quickly heated and then quickly cooled the man’s brain as it dissipated, finally turning it to glass.

The research was published on February 27 in the journal Scientific Reports, in the most recent dispute over the material discovered in the remains of the man’s skull.

The first study which suggested this was published in 2020, however, critics alleged the same year that the “glass brain” may have not been brain tissue at all. This new study offers additional evidence including remnant of brain cells, that the authors suggest show the material is glassified brain tissue.

Study lead author, Guido Giordano told , that this new theory is supported by studies of charcoal fragments uncovered near the man’s remains at Herculaneum, a seaside town near Pomepii that was also destroyed in the same eruption.

“At Herculaneum, we found charcoal fragments that experienced multiple [heating] events and the highest temperatures were asscoiated with the early super-hot ash cloud,” he said in an email.

The mentioned ash clouds are known to have formed during multiple recent volanic eruptions that features pyroclastic flows, including the 1991 eruption of Japan’s Mount Unzen, the expert explained.

Whilst the inital ash clouds contained little volanic material possibly resulting in little physcial impact, the clouds could have still been fatal because of there extremely hot temperatures. The researchers estimate that the inital ash cloud that covered Herculaneum was over 510C, which was first hot enough and the quickly cool enough to vitrify the man’s brain. 

Some scientists have argued whether the glassy material found in the remains was ever brain tissue. Molecular archaeologist at the University of Oxford, Alexandra Morton-Hayward claimed that samples of glassy material was not made available to outsides researchers. 

Giodano and his colleagues sutdy reinforces their claim that the glassy material had been part of the man’s brain and presents microscopic analysis revealing the remains of brain cells and other brain structures within the glassy material.