Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/09/treasures-continue-to-be-unear.html
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Pompeii had me at Brothel Murals. 
Here are some fun-to-play-with LIDAR scans:
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Wow! I had no idea how huge Pompei is, I thought it was just a few buildings, amazing, a new destination to try.
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Several times we see the drone soaring over the ruins. But how did they photograph the drone? They must have launched another drone. And another, and another, like Droneception! Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Yeah, it’s cool, but I had to stop watching when there was a guy with a camera filming the guy filming the drone operator.
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Dr. Sophie Hay has been curating a lot of photos of these recent Pompeii finds.
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I never got to travel much in my life, but I did get to Italy and went to Pompeii and Naples where a lot of the artifacts are (including the NSFW stuff). Really freaking amazing stuff.
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Get 'em while they’re not hot!
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I remember my art history teacher explaining that something like half the estimated area of Pompeii has never been excavated because it happens to be buried under private land and modern-day developments. The site is going to be yielding new archeological discoveries for generations to come.
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My mind is blown by how much of the city was actually preserved under the pumice instead of being disintegrated into ash by the lava.
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It’s also one of the only places where paintings from that period have been preserved. When we think about Greco Roman art we almost always think about sculpture, but that’s just because stone holds up to the ravages of time better than frescoes or canvases.
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Some of it may not be being unearthed because archaeologists are hoping for more sophisticated techniques in the future that will be better at preserving the art once it’s uncovered. Right now, if it’s buried, it is essentially a time capsule.
Yes, that’s one factor as well. It’s kind of fun to think it they’ll still be making new discoveries about Pompeii centuries from now.
Of course those archaeologists will probably have to dig through a layer or two of radioactive ruins from our civilization first.
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I just read this and now it’s clearer to me why Pompeii was buried, rather than completely incinerated.
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Not to mention the layer of shoes.
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