Groundbreaking discovery in Herculaneum
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| view of the excavation of Herculaneum |
In Herculaneum the discovery of remains of a vitrified brain of a victim can rewrote and add important elements
to the understanding of life in ancient Herculaneum.
Already in the 80s of the last century an unprecedented discovery guided by, Giuseppe Maggi,
director of the Herculaneum excavations, makes a discovery that literally
changes the history of the site, by finding the victims of the
eruption on the ancient beach. Today the history of Herculaneum risks being not
only rewritten but returns to be at the center of new interesting discoveries
thanks to a team of anthropologists and researchers led by Pier Paolo Petrone
of the Federico II University of Naples, who for years has studied the effects
of eruptions of Vesuvius in the Campania region and the populations that
inhabited it in the past.
The case: The custodian of the Collegio degli Augustali
In the 1960s, during the excavations conducted by the
then Superintendent Amedeo Maiuri, a wooden bed and the charred remains of a
man were found in the volcanic ash, which archaeologists believe was the
custodian of the College consecrated to the cult of Augustus.
The New England Journal of Medicine, a prestigious
worldwide leading medical journal, has published the results of a study on the
remains of brain material found in on this victims of the eruption, whose
skeleton is still in one of the service areas of the College of the Augustali
The vitrification of the brain
Recent field investigations, conducted by Pier Paolo
Petrone, have led to the discovery of vitreous material in the skull of the
victim, in which various proteins and fatty acids present in brain tissues and
human hair have been identified. The hypothesis of the scholars is that the
high heat was literally able to burn the fat and body tissues of the victim,
causing the brain to vitrify.
The preservation of brain tissue is an extremely rare
event in archeology, but it is the first time ever that human remains of
vitrified brain have been discovered due to the heat produced by an eruption
the excavations of Herculaneum and the new frontier of
DNA research
Physical anthropology studies are now supported by
increasingly sophisticated laboratory analyzes. Today they can be combined with
innovative research on degenerated DNA which, as shown by forthcoming works by
dr. Petrone still has some parts of the code sequence that can clarify the
origin and relationship of the victims found in the boathouses at the ancient
beach. These extraordinary data can also compare with those deriving from the
analyzes on organic materials and coprolites found during excavations in the
sewers under cardo V (excavations conducted in collaboration with the Packard
Foundation) which have clarified many aspects of the diet and contributed to
enriching the picture of the most frequent pathologies that afflicted the
inhabitants of Herculaneum.
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