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79 AD volcano eruption turned brain into rockz

ROME: It looks like a piece of rock — black, shiny and unexceptional. But Italian anthropologists say the fragment is actually part of an exploded brain from an victim of Italy ’s Mount Vesuvius eruption in AD 79.

The gory discovery — published on Thursday in ‘The New England Journal of Medicine ’ — is a rarity in archaeology, and researchers called the find from the ruins of Herculaneum near Pompeii “sensational”.



Scholars who have studied the remains of those trapped by ash, lava and toxic gasses when the volcano erupted in southern Italy were intrigued by a curious glassy material found inside one victim’s skull.

Pier Paolo Petrone, one of the researchers, said he was “sure this was human brain”. Further analysis confirmed it contained proteins and fatty acids from hair and brain tissue. The man at the centre of the discovery is believed to have been the custodian of the College of the Augustales, centre of the cult of Emperor Augustus .

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