"State of Emergency" Declared in Pompeii

[commodus]

Italian government declares state of emergency in Pompeii:

http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2008-07-04_104236746.html

[Will Hooton]

Italian government declares state of emergency in Pompeii:

Bit too late for that now!

[commodus]

Visiting Pompeii in Dec. 2005 I was horrified to see, at the Villa of the Mysteries, the room with the famous mystery rites frescoes wide open to the elements -- no protection at all, windows open with no glass in them or climate control of any sort, the cold rain coming in and pooling water on the floor, and worst of all, TAPED to the wall was a piece of paper with the words (in English) "No Flash" marked on it! Considering everything else, flash photography should have been the LEAST of their concerns.

[loveandpolitics]

That's terrible, here we are fussing about every little coin no matter how common or ruined it is, and a whole city goes to waste!

[Robert_Brenchley]

Politicians should be forced to put money into maintaining sites like that rather than putting it in their pockets. I assume Italian politicians have their slush funds the same as English ones.

[Scotvs Capitis]

If ths kind of thing were allowed to be in the hands of private citizens, this waste of a site would not happen. When it is under the "care" of bureaucrats, its the last on the list, and no one wants to give up their dental care or road repairs to pay for some old antiquity site that they can't access anyway, and not many people want their taxes raised even more to seal off such a historical place from themselves even more in the name of academia or posterity.  As much as i support cultural preservation, no politician should be forced to do any sort of funding, for when one issue of importance is able to be forced onto society, any number of others follows with precedent. If antiquities are to be truly preserved, privatize the care and study, you'd see some real action if someone could make a profitable enterprise of it, just like coins.

[commodus]

I absolutely disagree with you on this particular subject, Scotus, but the reasons are too numerous and the subject too off-topic to expand upon here.

[Scotvs Capitis]

I'm not advocating a complete free for all here, just venting my frustration with the lack of responsibility of governments and the blocking of people, knowledge and funds to preserve more of our cultural heritage because of some vaunted idea that governments and academia are the sole curators of such.

No, I wouldn't want to argue it here either, but we can all agree something needs doing to protect the site and its artifacts/ruins.

[TomX]

I'm not advocating a complete free for all here, just venting my frustration with the lack of responsibility of governments and the blocking of people, knowledge and funds to preserve more of our cultural heritage because of some vaunted idea that governments and academia are the sole curators of such.

No, I wouldn't want to argue it here either, but we can all agree something needs doing to protect the site and its artifacts/ruins.

sarcastic humor

There are some Enron execs who are being released now, and they are eager to help out
with commercialization efforts. Their knowledge of history is weak, but their desire
to maximize profits at any cost are high.

I'm thinking coke macjhines every 12 feet, a couple dozen Starbucks, and a water slide
right down the middle of the whole thing. If it was decked out more like Disneyland there
would be more support for the site.

/sarcastic humor

[vozmozhno]

Perhaps not privatization as a money-making venture, but what if the entire site had been sold to some fabulously wealthy amateur enthusiast--basically a "collector," perhaps with the stipulation that he/she keep it open to the public? Is it likely to have sustained this sort of egregious damage?

Voz

[TomX]

One thing Egypt has been doing is that if an archaeological team want
to excavate, they need to have enough money to properly care for all
the things they find. The normal procedure in the past was to dig the stuff up,
document it for the paper to be publish, have your picture taken next to it
for the den, and then jump on a plane and fly away, leaving the excavation
exposed.

And no, you can't just take the items with you. They are property of the
people in the country that you found them, but now you the archaeologist has
to come up with the money to care for it for the government.

Having to plan for the money to care for the site means more money is required for
excavation before the ground is broken. It also means fewer digs because
money is limited. But, it has the benefit that all finds in the future will be properly
cared for.

The ground is littered with antiquities in some places just weathering away because they have
been dug up by private entities who then left them there. They become the obligation of a government
who can't afford to protect them.

[TomX]

Perhaps not privatization as a money-making venture, but what if the entire site had been sold to some fabulously wealthy amateur enthusiast--basically a "collector," perhaps with the stipulation that he/she keep it open to the public? Is it likely to have sustained this sort of egregious damage?

Voz

I'd rather have some people who have devoted their lives to antiquity in charge
of something like this. A well intentioned amateur is not enough. The motive of the
person in charge of something so valuable should not be financial because it will
draw buzzards.

Some of it might have to be covered in ways that make it not available to the public,
but just to preserve it. In the future when money is available, it could be put back into
public viewing. In Egypt they have gone so far as re-burying sites they
couldn't afford to protect.

[Scotvs Capitis]

sarcastic humor

There are some Enron execs who are being released now, and they are eager to help out
with commercialization efforts. Their knowledge of history is weak, but their desire
to maximize profits at any cost are high.

I'm thinking coke macjhines every 12 feet, a couple dozen Starbucks, and a water slide
right down the middle of the whole thing. If it was decked out more like Disneyland there
would be more support for the site.

/sarcastic humor[/quote]

Heh, Enron was one of my biggest clients when they went bust. For all the effort, I got a nice 'Forbes Top 10' award to prop open a door or to collect dust, but no pay. Enron was actually really, really good at piping gas efficiently and built one hell of an infrastructure to do it, sleek and well run, not excessive in the least. But it was personal corruption in management that killed them. Corruption can be found in business as much as anywhere else, especially government. Governments have far less motivation to manage money well for the collective good but far more opportunity to manage money into personal interests and pet projects, as history bears out.

[TomX]

Yeah, I was a professor in a private college and you can guess what
their policy was. No, it's not education. Bottom line, that's what they
were interested in. Staff meetings did not involve some lofty ideas of
excellence in teaching, it was all balance sheets and threats of getting
canned if the profits weren't up. The people in charge of the school had a low
regard for academic pursuits. Not one of the people in charge were academic.

I've worked for government and for industry and the I've found the government
to be more trustworthy in all cases. There is no money motive for misdeeds, because
there is no money.

Academic people get chewed up and spit out in the backstabbing world
of private industry. If a company was in charge of antiquities the academics would be
parking cars for the execs.

Some things can be better handled by profit motive, such as the phone system.
That only applies when there is competition. When something is important and
for the public good, it is a bad idea to mix profit motive and public good. The money
always wins and the people are seen as pigeons.

Private individuals created this antiquities mess. It has been dumped on the
doorstep of the governemtns. The governments can't get the tax money to
care for the mess,

so bury it again.

 

[Metrodorus]

If there's any consolation to be found in this, is that some of the original frescoes of Pompeii are in the new Greco-Roman art gallery of the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York. I went a couple of times this year and they are in excellent condition.

Yet it still doesn't take away the sting of how all the remaining frescoes/buildings/artifacts still back at Pompeii itself are being left to ruin once more.