Emily Chan
In the ancient world, many people suffered a variety of gruesome deaths, such as being eaten alive by animals, hanged at the gallows, or getting dragged across the ground while tied to the back of a horse cart.
While these are brutal ways to die, the most horrendously blood-curdling way has to be death by a volcano.
When Mount Vesuvius spewed forth lava, ash, and toxic gases in A.D. 79, some victims of the volcano may have died after the extreme heat from the eruption caused their blood to boil, which led to their skulls exploding. The effects of the volcanic eruption could be felt as far as 21 miles.
In the surrounding cities of Oplontis, Pompeii, and Herculaneum, there were people who didn’t make it to safety.
Anyone who died from the eruption suffered terrible deaths, but some of those individuals met particularly dreadful and grisly ends, according to new research.
A team of researchers from the Federico II University Hospital in Naples studied the skeletal remains of victims that were found underneath a pile of ash in the 1980s.
These people, 300 in total, had taken shelter in a dozen waterfront chambers along the beach in the city of Herculaneum, which was located just four miles from the mouth of the volcano.
When the team first started to analyze some of the remains, they noticed that a red and black substance covered the victims’ bones, the inside of their skulls, and the spot where they were excavated.
After running several tests on the substance, they discovered that it contained high amounts of iron and iron oxide. These minerals are created when blood vaporizes. The presence of the residue suggests that the victims experienced “heat-induced hemorrhage,” causing them to die instantaneously.
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