Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the Artifact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on particular objects, ideas, and moments in time. At the center of all human endeavors, from warfare and art to religion and science, we find the human brain. But how often do we actually find brain tissue in the buried remnants of human beings in their history. The main issue, of course, is that soft
tissue doesn't stick around. Brains usually decomposed rather quickly following the creature's death, with enzymes rapidly breaking up the spongy tissue, which is roughly sevent water. Unless this process is interfered with, the brain decomposes along with the rest of the body's soft tissue and has gone entirely within the first few years of death. But of course, environmental circumstances and human burial practices sometimes allow a bit of brain to survive
the conquering worm. For instance, brain cells have been found preserved in remnants from the seventy nine CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius. It provides scientists with the chance to study neuronal tissue from the ancient world. Obsey the Iceman, Europe's oldest mummy, died roughly five thousand, three hundred years ago.
Since the ice preserved his body, scientists have been able to perform a protein analysis of his brain tissue to determine that he suffered a head injury prior to death, perhaps a blow to the back of the head from a weapon or an injury suffered from a fall after being struck with an arrow. Even Egyptian mummies, whose brains were often removed as part of the embalming ritual, sometimes
give up their gray matter for modern scientific scrutiny. In two thousand fourteen, researchers discovered a seventeen hundred year old Age Action mummy with a missing heart but an intact brain. And then there is the Heslington Brain, discovered in Heslington, York in two thousand and nine by archaeologists from the York Archaeological Trust. While excavating an Iron Age pit, they found an intact skull with jaw and two vertebrae still attached.
When they opened the skull, they found an astonishingly well preserved human brain. This was all the more impressive since the brain turned up in an unembalmed, otherwise skeletonized human remains. The two thousand, six hundred year old brain may have remained so well preserved due to the fact that the seemingly disembodied head had been cast into a cold, oxygen
poor environment. Dr Axel pet Sold of the u C. L. Queen Square Institute of Neurology has suggested that decay might have been halted within three months of death by an acidic fluid that may have leaked into the skull, preserving outer reach is more than the interior parts of the brain. Rodrigo Perez Ortega of Science Magazine has also suggested that a brain disease might have helped matters, producing dense protein
clumps that would have survived better. The brain, of course, is not a true artifact, but it is the author of artifacts, and given the right circumstances, it takes its place on the shelf beside them. Tune into additional editions of the artifact each week, hosted by either Joe or myself. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your
Mind is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.