About this project

This project is based on a well known archaeological site - Pompeii, Italy. Home to one of the most devastating volcanic eruptions in history, Pompeii has been studied continuously for about 200 years. Today Pompeii and the surrounding region is Italy's most important tourist attraction. The Field Museum in Chicago is the source of many facts given in this blog.

You might think that, after 200 years, everything has been discovered about the area. That idea would be wrong. Only about 2/3 of the remains of Pompeii have been excavated today. Much of it still lies beneath layers and layers of dirt, rock and ash.

Italy is trying to preserve the area as much as possible. There is currently a moratorium on archaeological digs - meaning that no new projects can be started. However, existing research projects are allowed to continue, like the AAPP Project, hosted by University of Bradford, UK. This group has conducted research in Pompeii since 1999, and has successfully mapped large sections of the center portion of the excavation area (see map). The supporting entity for this project is the Pompeii Trust, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Pompeii.

History plays a large part in the way we approach things today. History teaches us that, if we listen to it, we can learn to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

Pompeii left us all a message - to be aware of our surroundings and heed its warnings. Voices from Pompeii still cry out to us, from beneath the ash of its destruction.

for more about the conservation of Pompeii, read Wikipedia's entry for Conservation Issues of Pompeii and Herculaneum and Current Archaeology news by CWA