The headline makes her sound like a philistine, but she’s actually got a valid point. The place was a town destroyed by a volcanic eruption. It’s already ruined. The elements (sun, rain, wind) wear away at the place, too. Of course, you want to minimize destruction to the site by tourists, but to close the place off to tourists to “preserve it” does seem a bit misguided.
I’m torn.
It comes down to how much you value a site, or an artifact.
I want tourists to tour Pompeii, and I agree with this attitude: “Yes, tourists will have an impact and it will degrade the site.”
The same applies to the Acropolis, the Tower of London, and Hampton Court.
The sites are NOT there only for the enjoyment of academics, and should not be sealed off.
And yet . . .
I do not want anyone breathing too hard on the Mona Lisa or the Last Supper, or touching many of the sculptures of the masters.
So I am clearly of two minds. The subject clearly has two sides.
I had toured the “Spruce Goose” in LA 30+ years ago. Recently I toured it in McMinnville, OR and there were glass partitions where I hadn’t seen them before. The docent told me it was only open for a year in LA when there was so much vandalism they had to wall it off.
The mehtod of preservation would probably be much like the efforts in the past -- except the preservationists would be using electric saws to cut whole walls out of the site and move them to a museum somewhere.