"Pompeii" a Pompeii Travel Page by Balam

Carlo di Borbone began ecavating in 1748, and digging was done sporadically. It was only after several years that the site was identified as Pompeii.

The first features to be exposed were part of the necropolis outside Porta Ercolano, the temple of Isis and part of the theatres quarter.
The discovery of the House of the Faun containing the large mosaic depicting Alexander the Great in battle caught the imagination of people all over Europe and following the Unification of Italy in 1861 the appointment of Giuseppe Fiorelli as director marked a great turning-point in the excavations and from then site was explored systematically and detailed records were kept and instead of the fresco's and Mosaics being removed and took to the meuseum in Naples they were left in place. Over recent years excavation work has been scaled down in order to concentrate the limited resources available on restoring and maintaining the buildings which have already been exposed.

A first hand account of the eruption that buried Pompeii exists in a Letter from Pliny the Younger

"A black and terrible cloud, rent by snaking bursts of fire, gaped open in huge flashes of flames; it was like lightning, but far more extensive.
Soon afterwards, the cloud lowered towards the earth and covered the sea. Then my mother began to beg me to try to escape as best I could.
Ashes were already falling, but not yet thickly. When night fell, not one such as when there is no moon or the sky is cloudy, but a night like being in a closed place with the lights out. One could hear the wailing of women, the crying of children, the shouting of men; they called each other, some their parents, others their children, still others their mates, trying to recognize each other by their voices. Some lamented their own fate, others the fate of their loved ones. There were even those who out of their fear of death prayed for death.
It lightened a little, it seemed to us not daylight but a sign of approaching fire. But the fire stopped some distance away; darkness came on again, again ashes, thick and heavy. We got up repeatedly to shake these off; otherwise we would have been buried and crushed by the weight. At last that fog thinned and dissipated in a kind of smoke or mist; soon there was real daylight; the sun even shone, though wanly, as when there is an eclipse. Our still trembling eyes found everything changed, buried by a deep blanket of ashes as if it had snowed. Fear prevailed, since the earthquake tremors went on, and many, out of their senses, were mocking their own woes and others by awful predictions. But we, even though we had escaped some perils and expected others, we did not think even of going away until we should have news of my uncle."