The news that Italian researchers they claim to have discovered the spot where Plato is buried in Athens commented Dr. Kostas Paschalidis, archaeologist and president of the Association of Greek Archaeologists (SEA).
As he says speaking to APE-MPE, “that Plato’s tomb was in Academy it is not something unknown to archaeologists. Diogenes Laertius at the beginning of the 3rd c. AD states that Plato was buried in the Academy where he lived most of his life. Pausanias says the same, that is to say, Plato he was buried not far from the Academy. The important thing is that we have a technology with which people have succeeded in reading a text 1,000 words longer than previous people who read the text from the same papyrus with another technology. And that we may live to learn unknown texts from the library of Peison – the rich owner of the villa – that will be philosophical because he was mainly interested in philosophy and particularly epicureanism».
“The papyrus purports to say that Plato’s tomb is near the temple of the Muses in his Academy. Olympiodorus of Alexandria in his commentary on Plato is quoted as saying that, on arriving in Athens, Plato established a teaching school in the Academy and in part of it a mosque for the Muses. In fact the entire Academy is considered a mosque of the Muses, the place of knowledge as it were”, added K. Paschalidis. And he emphasized: “What we can say as SEA is that there is a need to protect and supervise every possible project in a declared zone, such as the zone of the Plato Academy, that staff is needed and that it is of great importance to give respect and preventive attention to such spaces.”
The luxurious Roman mansion in Ancient Heraklion (Herculaneum) in Campania, also known as “Villa of the Papyri“, with its impressive library, was buried in the earth in eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, which destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii.
The villa was found by chance in 1750 and from 1752 to 1754, through the excavation process, numerous papyrus scrolls came to light. The attempt to decipher them continues with modern methods of digital technology.
Italian scientists claim to have located the exact burial site of Plato in Athens
It is recalled that his exact burial place Plato it was possible to locate, according to research by the Italian Research Foundation, which was based on papyri from the site Herculaneum (Heraklion), near Naples. According to the research, led by the Italian Graziano Ranocchia, an expert in the study of papyri, the Plato was buried in “Academy” which bears his name in Athens, in a garden near “Temple of the Muses».
This important discovery, according to what is known, is due to a new reading of his papyrus Philodimos of Epicurean, which contains the History of the “Academy”. The papyri were “read” by a bionic eye, which, despite that charred from its explosion Vesuvius in 79 AD which also destroyed Pompeii, was able to discover this new, useful information. The whole research started three years ago and will be completed in 2026. The bionic eye detected a thousand new words, compared to the previous one, which was done in 1991, i.e. 30% extra text.
The Italian researchers add that from this new reading “it appears that Plato was sold as a slave already in 404 BC, when the Spartans conquered Aeginaor, as an alternative case, in 399 BC, immediately after the death of Socrates”. Until now, this particular event was always referred to in 387 BC. and in the period when Plato was at Syracuse her Sicily.
The little evidence we know about the end of Plato
From the book “The Book of Dead Philosophers” it is stated that according to Cicero, Plato died while he was writing. But Hermippus says that he died at a wedding feast at the age of 81, and that he was buried in the grounds of the Academy.
The Renaissance Neoplatonist Marsilio Ficino adds that Plato died on his birthday and comments that the number 81 has enormous significance, as it is the ultimate, the product of 9 times 9 and the sum of 8 plus 1. But a different version states that Plato died plagued by lice. However, whoever spreads such a scurrilous story “touches him deeply”, declared the eminent Thomas Stanley in 1687 in the History of Philosophy.
The importance of the Herculaneum papyri
The location of Plato’s burial site, in Academy her Athens, was made possible by a bionic reading of papyri located at Herculaneum in Lower Italy and charred by the explosion of Vesuvius in 79 AD. It is a total of over 1,800 papyri, with philosophical texts, mainly by him Philodimou of Epicurean. The vast majority of them are kept in the National Library of Naples and are not exposed to the public because they are considered special “sensitive” archeological findings.
According to the official record, there are 1,814 papyri and fragments, 1,756 of which were discovered in 1855. Thanks to the efforts of papyriologists, so far 340 have been read, 970 are considered partially damaged, while about 500 are charred fragments.
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