URBAN RUINS LINE A QUIET thoroughfare in the
northern reaches of Pompeii. Tall grass and sun-
flowers push through formerly tiled atrium floors,
and murals, once brightly painted with scenes from
Roman mythology, have faded to a few streaks of
red on gray-and-brown bricks.
Time and exposure have worn them down, but
archaeology itself has been somewhat cruel to these
relics. Eager treasure hunters of the 18th and 19th
centuries often dug into the earth without much con-
cern for what they destroyed as long as they found
statues, gold, or other booty. Upper stories of build-
ings that hadn’t been demolished by Mount Vesuvius’
hail of volcanic debris in 79 A.D. were wrecked by
picks and shovels. Folks searching for loot in the
wealthier southern neighborhoods of this city piled
loose dirt on top of the still-buried northern blocks,
creating an unstable, muddy mound of soil, bricks,
pottery fragments, and other discarded artifacts.
Farther along the strip, there’s an area where
those centuries-gone hunters heaped their de-
bris. In 2010, portions of a nearby ancient athletic
training facility—the “House of the Gladiators”—
collapsed due to neglect, triggering the Pompeii
Archaeological Park to conduct both an excavation
and a rescue operation. Surrounded by scaffolding
and dotted with wheelbarrows and hard hats along-
side deep holes in the ground, the place looks more
like a construction site than a dig. Mounds of old
detritus have started to erode rapidly, threatening
to make the streets and homes still below ground
even more inaccessible. The effort will reveal
new parts of the city, and will repair damage
from previous excavations. It’s part of a larger,
parkwide initiative, funded by some 100 mil-
lion euros from the European Union and Italian
governments, to shore up Pompeii against ero-
sion, weather, and ill repair.
Losing Pompeii would mean losing one of
the best-known and preserved relics of the Ro-
man Empire. Unlike ruins that have long been
exposed to the elements, much of this seaside
destination remains as it was when Vesuvius
erupted and entombed it in about 20 feet of hot
ash. Today, the 163-acre site hosts 3 million vis-
itors annually. People come for a glimpse of the
ancient past, fossilized by a terrifying disaster
that killed some 2,000 people—roughly one-
fifth of Pompeii, as well as residents in the nearby
towns of Herculaneum and Stabiae.
What these visitors don’t realize, as they
munch on fried pizza and don tinfoil Roman
helmets, is that they’re also witnessing the his-
tory of archaeological science. Diggers first
excavated the city almost 300 years ago, at the
behest of the antiquity-obsessed Sicilian King
Charles VII; major digs starting in 1748 uncov-
ered the town’s enormous amphitheater, and
later a plaque identifying the place as Pompeii.
By the 1860s, researchers had unearthed much
of the burg, and the newly formed Italian gov-
ernment opened its streets to the public.
Today, a new generation of investigators is
using modern tools to study Pompeii and other
sites without wrecking them in the process.
“Nondestructive techniques can help us know
where and what to dig,” says Pier Matteo Bar-
one, who teaches archaeology at the American
University of Rome, and favors using porta-
ble ground-penetrating radar devices to peep
through the ash before reaching for his pickax.
With added insights from high-resolution
drone footage, 3D modeling, and data- analysis,
this wave of historical explorers is painting a
richer picture of long-gone life. Their meth-
ods also mirror those we’ll employ beyond this
planet, when space agencies will need to probePG 92
POPSCI — FALL 2019ROBERTHARDING/^ALAMY^ STOCKPHOTO