The place where Plato was buried has been discovered thanks to the Herculaneum papyrus dedicated to the Greek philosopher

A new discovery from the GreekSchools project answered a question that still had no answer: where Plato was buried. According to the clue, caught in a carbonized papyrusthe Greek philosopher was buried in a garden ofAcademy in Athens. The words that confirm the news were extrapolated thanks to technological and methodological study innovations, which allowed the recognition of over a thousand words (30% of the text) of the papyrus which burned following theeruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD

The tomb of the Greek philosopher Plato

The GreekSchools project (capable of new archaeological discoveries beyond that of Paestum), thanks to techniques such as infrared and ultraviolet optical imaging, molecular and elemental imaging, thermal imaging, tomography, digital optical microscopy and others, he managed to discover the location of Plato’s tomb. The clue is found inside a Herculaneum papyrus lost, that is charred from the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, which contains the History of the Academy of Philodemus of Gadara (110-after 40 BC).

According to new investigations (such as those that have revealed new remains in the Valley of the Temples), from which much more than the burial placethe location of the tomb was discovered which presumably should be in a guardroom reserved for him at the Academy in Athens, in an area intended for members of the Platonic school.

View of Herculaneum

More discoveries about Plato

Thanks to the increase in the text extracted from the papyrus (30% compared to the previous 1991 edition) it was possible to discover that Plato he was sold into slavery on the island of Aegina as early as perhaps 404 BC or 399 BC, immediately after the death of Socrates. Until this time it was believed that the year was 387 BC, during his stay in Sicily at the court of Dionysius I of Syracuse. In another passage Plato criticizes the musical and rhythmic abilities of a musician originally from Thrace.

In the lyrics we also read about his last night, but not only that. They provide a new look at corruption of the oracle of Delphi by the academic philosopher Heraclides Ponticus. Finally we find the name of Philo of Larissacorrected to ‘Philo‘.

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The GreekSchools project

The GreekSchools project is a research presented at the “Vittorio Emanuele III” Library in Naples which received funding from the European Research Council. Thanks to 2,498,356 eurosin 2021 theexamination of the papyri. The studies will continue for 5 years, but important data have already emerged.

Coordinating the research is Graziano Ranocchiaof the University of Pisa, in collaboration with the Institute of Cultural Heritage Sciences (ISPC) and the “Antonio Zampolli” Institute of Computational Linguistics (ILC) of the National Research Council, and the National Library of Naples where the papyrus was kept.

Photo source: 123rf