Specifically, Pompeii.
There are a lot of things to marvel at. The sheer size of the ruins struck me immediately. The distance from Vesuvius surprised me as well.. I always imagined the city perched directly on the slope, I guess. The condition of the city itself is a wonder. It's really well-preserved, so much so that it's hard not to picture it as it once was. I read in a guidebook somewhere that it's easy to forget that you aren't in a living city. I can say that it's true. Pompeii seems alive.
One of the things I keep thinking about is the graffiti. Archaeologists found graffiti everywhere: some of which still remains in the city, but most of which resides elsewhere. It covers a wide range of subjects, most of which are still represented in modern-day graffiti: love, sex, politics, opinions. Even a couple of "I was here"s thrown in for good measure.
What I find so fascinating, and I'm sure a lot of historians probably agree with me, is that through this very basic form of expression, this group of people who existed so many many years ago, is able to speak directly to us. There are so many things we don't know about the past, and so much of what we do know is just surmised.
But here, we know for sure, hundreds upon hundreds of years after these people lived and died, that Marcus loved Spendusa. Enough to write it on a wall.
What will our graffiti say about us?
