The eruption covered Pompeii and Herculaneum, killing people but preserving details of their lives ALAMYThe brain of a man killed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79 was turned to glass by the heat — a discovery hailed as the first of its kind. It happened in the city of Herculaneum, which like neighbouring Pompeii was buried by volcanic material, killing residents but preserving evidence of everyday life. “I was looking inside a victim’s skull which exploded in the heat and spotted splatters of black glass. I thought, ‘That has to be the brain’ ,” said Pier Paolo Petrone, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Naples Federico II. “This is the first time vitrified remains of a brain have been discovered in archaeology or forensics.

Source: The Times January 24, 2020 00:00 UTC