Since 1752, researchers have been working to decipher the more than 1,000 papyrus scrolls found in the Villa dei Papyri, in Herculaneum. That is not obvious, because they were charred in 79 AD, during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which also buried Pompeii under a 19-meter-thick layer of ash and lava.
Today the papyrus scrolls look like large lumps of coal. They are extremely vulnerable, but because they were well preserved in the ash layer, their contents also remained potentially accessible. Thanks to new imaging techniques and recently also artificial intelligence, three researchers have managed to decipher one third of a scroll, around a thousand Greek words. Graziano Ranocchia, the papyrologist from the University of Pisa, told the Italian news agency Ansa.
Academy
The partially deciphered papyrus was written by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemos of Gadara. Many scrolls are from his hand, leading some historians to believe that it was his library that was found. Moreover, hundreds of other roles are said to be buried under the ashes.
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The text is about the Academy of Athens, a well-known subject about which much information so far has already come from Philodemos. The academy was a ‘university’ where Plato and his successors taught knowledge. One of the revelations is the fairly exact location of the burial place of the philosopher, who died in 348 or 347 BC at the age of 80. Until now it was thought that he was buried within the institution, when in fact he was given a prestigious resting place, in a special garden of the Academy, close to the Museion, the sanctuary of the Muses that no longer exists.
The ten fragments analyzed also reveal that the philosopher was probably sold into slavery on the island of Aegina between 404 and 399 BC, and not in 387 BC as previously thought. An excavation is necessary to confirm the text. Another passage contains a dialogue by Plato, in which the philosopher sharply criticizes the actions of a barbarian musician from Thrace.
According to researcher Ranocchia, this discovery is a huge step forward, but at the same time only the beginning: “We will only see the real impact in terms of knowledge in years.”
