2mo ago

Archaeologists find a human brain that was turned to glass by Pompeii volcano Vesuvius

cosmosmagazine.com

15 comments

Gotta say that's pretty fuckin metal
- No, it was glass.
  
  Gotta say that's pretty fuckin brutal

Indiana Jones: heavy breathing
- The science actually lends support to the idea that a crystal skull can be some kind of alien data storage device.

This could not have happened if the individual was heated solely by pyroclastic flows – high-speed currents of gas and other volcanic matter. The temperature of these flows from Vesuvius would not have reached higher than 465°C and would have cooled too slowly.
Ok, so ignoring how that's pretty low for a pyroclastic flow, I'm pretty sure the evidence for the ash arriving first is the bodies that were encased by it. If the pyroclastic flow hit first, I don't think any of the actions the people were found in would have lasted long enough to be coated in the preserving ash.

I wonder how many glazed parasites they'll find in it. Specially fish parasites - mostly from garum, and guess where garum factories were? Near Pompeii.
- how would the parasites survive the garum making process? like that shit is saturated with salt and left in a jar for months!
  
  The spread of fish tapeworm due to Roman conquest is well documented, and the only good explanation is garum. And I believe that larval cysts can survive pretty rough conditions, including high salinity.
  The "right" way to get rid of them would be by heat, but you can't simply use cooked fish to make garum, it denatures the proteins required for the fish flesh to decompose "the right way".
  But the most concerning part isn't even the parasites you're ingesting directly from garum. Sure, they'll get into your belly, and you'll become their definitive host. The problem is its offspring being literally shitted onto the soil, in a time where proper sanitation was non-existent; once you ingest their eggs, you're taking the role of the intermediate host, and they'll nest themselves across your flesh and brain.
- wow interesting. got anything I could read more on garum factories in Pompeii?
  
  History and Archaeology Online has some great introductory info.
  Odds are that you won't find leftovers of those factories / workshops in the ruins of either Herculaneum or Pompeii though. Garum wasn't prepared in urban centres, as there were laws against it. (Garum production stinks really, really bad.) Instead it was prepared nearby, in areas with low demographic density, and then sent to the city for distribution.
  And the region around Pompeii was great for that - it's coastal so you have access to fish, it's really sunny and garum fermentation is made under sunlight, and it's close enough to Rome to make travel times short.
  The text I've linked mentions it, but 30% of the garum production of Pompeii and the surrounding region (Campania) was owned by a single guy, called Aulus Umbricius Scarus. He lived in Pompeii, got killed by the Vesuvius eruption, and his house has been identified.