Diving into the secrets of a remote era thanks to the most advanced technology is no longer utopia. The carbonized papyri of Herculaneum, which have preserved their mysteries for more than 2000 years, are becoming ever less impenetrable. Preserved by the ashes, these scrolls discovered in the 18th century, in one of the residences of the city struck by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, called the “Villa of the papyrus”, arouse the curiosity of researchers. The villa, owned by Calpurnius Pison Caesoninus, Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, housed more than 1,800 of them arranged on shelves.
In recent decades, people have been working to develop non-invasive techniques to unlock the secrets of these extremely fragile papyri. Last February, following an international competition created by Brent Seales, a computer science researcher at the University of Kentucky in the United States, three researchers managed to decipher a small part of it using artificial intelligence.
Also read: A Herculaneum papyrus carbonized during the eruption of Vesuvius has been deciphered
In addition to artificial intelligence, imaging and philology have enabled significant progress. The National Library of Naples, where most of the texts are kept, presented the promising results of the “GreekSchools” project, born in 2021 from a collaboration between the University of Pisa, the Neapolitan Library to decipher the precious scrolls. Scientists have succeeded in deciphering more than a thousand unpublished words, or around 30% of the text, announced Graziano Ranocchia, papyrologist at the University of Pisa coordinating the “GreekSchools” study, ANSA tells us, the Italian press agency.
From the papyrus The Academy of Athens, written by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara, these new revelations shed light on little-known aspects of Plato’s life. “The project, in addition to studying the state of conservation of the papyri, aims to publish an updated edition of Philodemus’ Revue des Philosophes, the oldest history of Greek philosophy in our possession. The History of the Academy is one of them and contains a lot of exclusive information about Plato and the development of the Academy under his successors,” explains Graziano Ranocchia to Corriere fiorentino.
Among the most surprising revelations is the exact location of the philosopher’s burial, the garden reserved for him at the Academy of Athens, near the Museion, the sacred sanctuary of the Muses. Until now, he was thought to be buried in some random place within the institution, even though he had a dedicated and prestigious resting place. The ten fragments analyzed also reveal that the philosopher was probably sold as a slave on the island of Aegina between 404 BC, when the Spartans conquered the island, and 399 BC, immediately after the death of Socrates, and not in 387 BC, during his stay in Sicily at the court of the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse. Another passage reveals a dialogue from Plato, where the philosopher sharply criticizes the performance of a barbarian musician from Thrace. “This is a huge step, even if the study is still in its early stages: we will only see the real impact in terms of knowledge in the years to come,” considers Graziano Ranocchia.