After 1860, Giuseppe Fiorelli served as director of the excavations. He directed the first uncovering of the whole city block by block. The Italian government has provided funding money for this project. After many years of work, we can now walk in Pompeii "as Pompeians did". After standing in line for quite a while and paying for a ticket, the tourist experiences what are about to live are quite unique. When walking in Pompeii, you can close your eyes and feel the magic of the city, because it seems like the time has not gone by. Visitors can see the buildings as they stood 2,000 years ago. They can walk in and out of houses and up and down narrow streets, see the Temple of Jupiter, which was an ancient ruin at the time of the eruption, or sit in a tepidarium (part of a Roman public bath). Tourists can also visit the Antiquarium and see the casts of some of the bodies, houseware, the remains of food such as carbonized loaves of bread, eggs and other things that also date back to ancient Rome. The center of public life is called the Forum, and it played a fundamental role in the political, religious and economic life of the city. It had the Temple of Apollo, the Temple of Vespasian, the Sanctuary of the Lares Publici, Macellum, a Basilica, public buildings, etc. In Pompeii, there are two theaters, gladiators barracks, an amphitheater, private and public baths, temples, gates, houses and villas, and even a bakery. Pompeii attracted many wealthy Romans. They built great villas near the Mediterranean shore, where they could enjoy the mild, sunny climate. It is in the houses where wall paintings are founded, and, believe it or, not Pompeii owes its fame to the mural art preserved because they were "hermetically sealed by hardened lava and slime from all destructive atmospheric influences"(Kraus 156). Because of that, the houses of Pompeii have given us a treasure of mural paintings, the most complete record of the changing fashions in interior decoration in the entire ancient world.
