New words that have been deciphered give a more accurate description of the burial site.
Italian researchers have now managed to decipher new words in scrolls that were buried in ash from a volcanic eruption in the year 79.
Then the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy were destroyed by the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius.
Buildings, streets, art and possessions have since been excavated again.
Among other things, 1,800 papyrus rolls have been found in Herculaneum. They were found in the ruins of a villa in the 18th century.
New technology makes it possible to decipher more words in the old scrolls.
Some of the deciphered text is about the death of the great philosopher Plato.
Graziano Ranocchia told that in a presentation at the Naples Biblioteca Nazionale recently, writes The Guardian. Ranocchia is a researcher at the University of Pisa.
In the presentation, results from the Greek Schools research project were presented.
Buried at his academy
The researchers found details of the philosopher’s burial site in a scroll dealing with the history of Plato’s Academy, written by Philodemos of Gadara.
The text described that Plato was buried in the garden of the Academy, in a private section reserved for Plato, near a sanctuary dedicated to the Muses. This is reported by the Italian news agency ANSA.
It was known from before that Plato was buried in the garden, but the text gives a more accurate description of where. The grave has not been found.
Plato established an academy in the year 387 BC, where among others Aristotle was a student. The square was outside the city walls of Athens, in a garden with a gymnasium, a training ground, according to Store norske lexikon.
The academy was destroyed by the Roman dictator Sulla in 86 BC. The archaeological site is today located in a park in the neighborhood of Akadimia Platonos in Athens.
Dissatisfied with the music
One of the texts is also about Plato’s last hours. The philosopher lived from the year 428 BC. to the year 347 BC
Plato was dying and had a high fever. A woman originally from Thrace played the flute for him. Thrace was a historical geographical area in South-Eastern Europe.
The music should make his last hours easier, according to the article from ANSA.
However, Plato was not satisfied. He criticized the musician for lacking a sense of rhythm. He is said to have made the comment to a guest from Mesopotamia, according to CNN.
The story that the female flute player was present has been known before.
It is mentioned, among other things, in a text from Philosophy Now from 2018 and in a book from 2008.
According to these sources, Plato had previously criticized flute music, but he still wanted to listen to it as he lay dying. Here it says that Plato helped the young woman find the rhythm by showing it with her fingers.
Other sources have mentioned that Plato died at a wedding or that he died in his sleep, according to Wikipedia.
A thousand new words
The researchers have used various imaging technologies to scan the charred scrolls, without destroying them. Around a thousand new words were discovered in the history of Plato’s Academy, according to The Telegraph.
– Carbon-based ink was used to write on the scrolls, which were, so to speak, themselves converted to carbon during the eruption, which made them very difficult to read, Costanza Miliani of the Italian Research Council tells the newspaper.
The document was previously partially deciphered, but the new investigations have revealed 30 percent more of the text.
Sold as a slave
The text also gives another year for when Plato is said to have been sold as a slave.
Researchers have until now believed that Plato was sold as a slave after being in Sicily, where he tried to influence tyrants to create an ideal state, according to the Great Norwegian Encyclopedia.
In the text, there is a different year for when Plato ended up being sold as a slave. It happened in the year 404 or 399 BC, according to the text.
– It seems that Plato was sold as a slave as early as 404 BC, when the Spartans conquered Aegina, or, alternatively, in 399 BC, immediately after Socrates’ death, Graziano Ranocchia tells The Telegraph.
