I suppose to past generations that was a bit like pointing a box out to a kid and ordering, whatever you do, don't look in the box.
The discovery of the theater in Herculaneum also makes me a little ill — the idiot aristocrat used the find (and the theater was roofed, and the roof had survived, so the actual interior of the theater was basically a buried room, left as it had been 1900 years ago) as a gift shop, stripping it of all the statuary and shipping those off to peers and relatives throughout Europe.
Another great story — the excavators, who were risking their lives anyway, came across a wall with gold letters nailed to it, containing a message of some sort, probably a dedication from whomever had built the building. The excavators pried off all the letters and presented them to their boss, so the message (which is the only real value there) was lost. Work of genius.