Posted on 01/23/2005 11:33:31 AM PST by RightWingAtheist
Even in our age of hyperbole, it would be hard to exaggerate the significance of what is at stake here: nothing less than the lost intellectual inheritance of western civilisation
Down a side street in the seedy Italian town of Ercolano, wafted by the scent of uncollected rubbish and the fumes of passing motor-scooters, lies a waterlogged hole. A track leads from it to a high fence and a locked gate. Dogs defecate in the undergrowth where addicts discard their needles.
Peering into the dark, stagnant water it is hard to imagine that this was once one of the greatest villas in the Roman world, the size of Blenheim Palace, extending for more than 250 yards along the Bay of Naples. (An impression of what it must have looked like is provided by the Getty Museum in California, which is an exact replica.) Its nemesis, Vesuvius, still looms over it less than four miles away. When the mountain erupted on August 24, AD79 it buried the villa under a mantle of volcanic rock 100ft thick, altering the coastline and pushing the sea back by hundreds of yards.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Mmmmm, Betty Page...gives a whole new meaning to the term "library stacks".
There was a good special about Vesuvius on the Discovery Channel over the weekend, and it was current - which is nice. But the best documentary is still the National Geographic one, which was done probably 15 years ago. It's amazing how so many people can live so close to the volcano. And a port for the US Navy is just 8 or 10 miles away.
Ahem. That's Bettie Page. Do NOT arouse the ire of the Goddess!
Me, arouse Goddess Bettie? I only wish.
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Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. |
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