HERCULANEUM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 143, 28 March 1928, Page 7

HERCULANEUM.

PLUNDERED BY ROBBERS. Italian archaeologists who are laboriously excavating the buried city of Hereulaneum have found to their disappointment that robbers have been, there many times before them, according to a. report to "Art and Archaeology" by Dr. David Robinson, well-known American archaeologist, now in Italy. The city was believed to be sealed, comparfcively intact, in its mould of hot mud poured down bv Vesuvius and long since hardened to stone. But as they drill into the rock, the scientists have discovered that all through the ages tunnels have been dug by robbers. Tho site is honeycombed by these tunnels, showing that many works of art have been carried off in previous times, Dr. Robinson states. "The new excavations have disclosed some new houses with second stories preserved," he says. "The new methods make it possible to preserve second stories, and to take casts of doors and balconies, and put these in place of the lost originals. In one of the new houses where "the King of Italy started 1 the excavating, is a beautiful shrine of mosaic. In one room is a fin©' pavement of large black and white tiles, and in another is a multi-coloured pavement. On the walls are beautiful mosaics representing a man with his mule, and other scenes." Art objects dug out from Herculaneum, in previous attempts to reach its streets ID to 100 feet below the surface, have been of such beauty that the present systematic excavation is expected to bring to light relics of great interest and value.