Discounting the ravages of over 250 years of excavation and exploitation by collectors and trampling tourists, the city of Pompeii, famously frozen in time in the year 79 AD, continues to offer the most complete material presentation of the past of classical antiquity. This unique completeness, showing rather than telling of life in ancient Rome at a peak period of empire, makes a visit to Pompeii extraordinarily rewarding for even the most casual visitor. But at the same time the complexity of studying and analyzing what was an entire city, surrounded by outlying farms and villages and resorts, is extraordinarily … Continue reading Unlocking the Mysteries of Ancient Pompeii