Systematic excavations began at Herculaneum in 1738 and ten years later at Pompeii. In subsequent years, archaeologists found villas and homes with furnishings and works of art preserved in the volcanic ash. The Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum was found buried with more than eighty statues and about a thousand ancient papyri (scrolls) inscribed with Greek texts. Modern knowledge of ancient Greek and Roman culture is largely based on what was unearthed in excavations at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the other sites around the Bay of Naples. News of the excavations spread quickly throughout Europe and sparked the public’s fascination with ancient Greek and Roman culture. Numerous poets and writers drafted imagined stories about life in.
