ROBBING THE RUINS

Evening Star, Issue 19795, 20 February 1928, Page 1

ROBBING THE RUINS

Italian arclucologists who are laboriously excavating the buried city of Herculaneum have found to their disappointment that robbers have been there many times before them, according to a report to 1 Art and Archwology,’ by Dr David Robinson, wellknown American archaeologist, now in Italy. The city was believed to be sealed, comparatively intact, its mould of hot mud poured down by 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.- The 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 presen'ed. 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 the excavating is a beautiful shrine of mosaic. In one room is a fine pavement of large black and white tiles, and in another is a multi-colored 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 40ft to 100 ft 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.