Pompeii digested

We’ve been trying to sum up in one word what the archeological site at Pompei means to each of us, and although we can throw out one-word answers, there are many single words that apply. Does that make sense? Mystifying, saddening, hot, spiritual, quiet, sprawling, alive, exhausting, frustrating, accommodating. Each word works, very well if I may say so, but no one word sums up the entire place. When one stops to think that in one instant in 79 AD the whole city was buried, but now it’s all above ground, time seems unthinkably fast moving. But, when one sees that the excavations are on going,



that workers are erecting scaffolding, digging ditches, and re-pointing ancient casas, I cannot imagine the excavations ever coming to an end. I suppose that although the volcano buried the whole city in the blink of an eye, the four hundred years since Pompei was rediscovered have wreaked their havoc as well. It must be a constant struggle to keep the encroaching modern city at bay.