Plato’s final hours recounted in scroll found in Vesuvius ash

Domenico Camardo, an archaeologist at the Herculaneum conservation project, compared the impact of the AD79 eruption of Vesuvius to the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima during the second world war.

Newly deciphered passages from a papyrus scroll that was buried beneath layers of volcanic ash after the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have shed light on the final hours of Plato, a key figure in the history of western philosophy.

The ancient scroll was found to contain a previously unknown narrative detailing how the Greek philosopher spent his last evening, describing how he listened to music played on a flute by a Thracian slave girl.