ERUPTION OF MOUNT VESUVIUS MAY HAVE KILLED PEOPLE
by vapourising their blood and causing their heads to explode.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius 2,000 years ago may have killed people by blowing up their heads, a study of ancient skulls shows. Material that poured from the volcano was so hot that it vapourised people’s blood, quickly turning it into steam. It also boiled people’s brains, building up steam pressure in their heads until they exploded, according to a new analysis of remains found at Herculaneum - one of the closest cities to the 79 AD eruption.
The blast near modern day Naples is thought to have killed 16,000 people and buried Herculaneum and neighbouring town Pompeii in rock and deadly hot ash.
Archaeologists at the Federico II University Hospital in Italy studied bones recovered from 12 ash-filled waterfront chambers in Herculaneum.
They found traces of red and black mineral residue on the bones, including inside skulls, as well as within the ash around and inside the skeletons.
According to the researchers, this residue contains iron and iron oxides - chemicals that would appear when blood boils and turns into steam.
‘Here we show for the first time convincing experimental evidence suggesting the rapid vapourisation of body fluids and soft tissues of the 79 AD Herculaneum victims at death by exposure to extreme heat,’ the researchers wrote in their paper.
Skulls found at the site were cracked and broken, with signs of an extreme force blasting the bone from within. Researchers suggest that the victims’ brains instantly boiled from the heat, building up steam pressure that caused their heads to explode in an instant.
‘Careful inspection of the victims’ skeletons revealed cracking and explosion of the skullcap and blackening of the outer and inner table, associated with black exudations from the skull openings and the fractured bone,’ the researchers wrote.
‘Such effects appear to be the combined result of direct exposure to heat and an
increase in intracranial steam pressure induced by brain ebullition, with skull explosion as the possible outcome.’
It’s not entirely clear whether or not the iron residue on the bones came from boiled blood or meta artefacts found nearby such as coins, rings and other personal items.
The researchers said that some of the iron residue was found on bones with no metal objects nearby, suggesting it came from superheated blood.
Blood that was zapped to extreme temperatures quickly separated and deposited iron onto the bones, they believe.
The 12 waterfront chambers along the beach in Herculaneum were used as refuge by at least 300 people when the two-day eruption began.
It quickly became their tomb when they were ‘suddenly engulfed by the abrupt collapse of the rapidly advancing first pyroclastic surge,’ experts wrote.
DAILY MAIL, 10 OCTOBER 2018