For more than 20 years the Decumanus Maximus has been closed to visitors. But at a ceremony at the site it was returned to the public. "Most of Herculaneum as experienced by tourists consists of little narrow streets where people could virtually lean across from balcony to balcony and touch hands," Wallace-Hadrill said. "But the Decumanus Maximus is a big public space. It's impressive." Its reopening marks the latest stage in the steady recovery and restoration of a settlement less well-known but in some respects more fascinating than Pompeii. Both were preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79.
Herculaneum was rediscovered by chance in the early 18th century. By 2001, when the Herculaneum Conservation Project (HCP) was launched, the partially excavated site was in a pitiful condition: two-thirds of its area was closed to visitors for reasons of either safety or conservation. By the end of next year the HCP hopes to have reduced that proportion by half. The project has consolidated the escarpment that towers over the town, stabilised all but a handful of the ancient buildings, repaired most of the existing roofing and reinstated the original Roman drainage system, providing an outlet for water that once accumulated on the site and threatened to destroy it.
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