10-15-2009, 04:24 AM
Kineas wrote:
Yes, preservation is a thorny subject too.....I have visited Pompeii/Herculaneum many times over the last 35 years, and the deterioration wrought by time and weather, over-visiting and even vandalisation and robbery is enough to bring tears to the eyes. On my first visit as a young man, I yearned for there to be funds available to excavate properly the two-thirds or more of each that lay untouched.......now I am very glad that it awaits a less crude and invasive form of discovery in the future, since exposure brings rapid ruin !!
Quote:Perhaps we won't see the painting on the wall. So be it--we'd probably only ruin it, anyway. Let's leave it there until we have the technology to map sites and digitize them--so nothing more is lost by the amateurish efforts of grave-looters--whether paid by a university or a collector.
Yes, preservation is a thorny subject too.....I have visited Pompeii/Herculaneum many times over the last 35 years, and the deterioration wrought by time and weather, over-visiting and even vandalisation and robbery is enough to bring tears to the eyes. On my first visit as a young man, I yearned for there to be funds available to excavate properly the two-thirds or more of each that lay untouched.......now I am very glad that it awaits a less crude and invasive form of discovery in the future, since exposure brings rapid ruin !!
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff