The Herculaneum papyri have revealed the location of Plato's burial place in the Platonic Academy in Athens, an Italian researcher said on Tuesday. The Herculaneum papyri are more than 1,800 papyrus scrolls discovered in the 18th century in the Villa of the Papyri in the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, which were carbonized when the villa was hit by the 79 AD Mount Vesuvius eruption that also destroyed Pompeii. Reading the scrolls is extremely difficult and carries risks of destroying them. The location of Plato's burial place was contained in thousands of new words and differently read words in papyrus on the history of the Academy by Philodemus of Gadara, an Epicurean philosopher and poet who lived in Herculaneum, said University of Pisa expert Graziano Ranocchia. The scholar made the announcement at the Naples Biblioteca Nazionale (National Library) as he presented the mid-term results of the 'Greek Schools' research project conducted with the National Research Council. Ranocchia said the texts suggested the burial place was in a garden reserved for Plato in a private area in the Academy, near the sacred shrine to the Muses. The Platonic Academy was destroyed by the Roman dictator Sulla in 86 BC.
