Instead of removing the debris, they heaped it together and built
above it. The new edifice in turn fell into ruins and its debris was
added to that of more remote time; thus there were formed several
strata of remains. When Schliemann excavated the site of Troy, he had
passed through five beds of debris; these were five ruined villages
one above another, the oldest at a depth of fifty feet.
By accident one town has been preserved to us in its entirety. In 79
A.D. the volcano of Vesuvius belched forth a torrent of liquid lava
and a rain of ashes, and two Roman cities were suddenly buried,
Herculaneum by lava, and Pompeii by ashes; the lava burnt the objects
it touched, while the ashes enveloped them, preserving them from the
air and keeping them intact. As we remove the ashes, Pompeii reappears
to us just as it was eighteen centuries ago. One still sees the
wheel-ruts in the pavement, the designs traced on the walls with
charcoal; in the houses, the pictures, the utensils, the furniture,
even the bread, the nuts, and olives, and here and there the skeleton
of an inhabitant surprised by the catastrophe.
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