To Preserve or not to Preserve THAT... is the Question

[Decker]

How important is the preservation of history? The physical preservation of history for instance. The other day I was watching a show about the Aztecs and later Athens and ancient Greece. As I watched these, I noticed how both Athens and Tenochtitlan (sp?) were being built over by their modern day counterparts, in this case Mexico City and modern day Athens. This left me wondering, as one who also has a habit of saving things, besides the major structures how important is the physical preservation of such sites as those really worth? And not only those specific sites, I'm talking about ancient and modern sites located all over the world.

[Conradus]

I'd like to see the centre of ancient cities kept intact, and in musea nearby some digital restoration would be nice. Rome for instance where the Forum Romanum, the Palatine and Collosseum are all kept fairly clean of any intrusion.
It would be impractical to try to keep every ancient building intact. Great structures should be kept intact in as far as possible, but if there's a huge gain for the populace, then they may be destroyed imo. Though it's always preferable to try and replace them (like Abu Simbel)
Honestly I don't care about the normal houses of earlier periodes, but landmark buildings I'd like to preserve.

[lars573]

How important is the preservation of history? The physical preservation of history for instance. The other day I was watching a show about the Aztecs and later Athens and ancient Greece. As I watched these, I noticed how both Athens and Tenochtitlan (sp?) were being built over by their modern day counterparts, in this case Mexico City and modern day Athens. This left me wondering, as one who also has a habit of saving things, besides the major structures how important is the physical preservation of such sites as those really worth? And not only those specific sites, I'm talking about ancient and modern sites located all over the world.
The Spainish knocked down Tenochitilan (using rubble to fill in the lake some and expand the island) and built Mexico city in the 16th cenutry. To find it today you have dig under Mexico city. In fact several historic colonial buildings in the centre of the city are built on the stumps of the Aztec buildings. The example I can give is a cathederal and square is built on the ruins of the Aztec sun temple. The Mexican government had pulled up some the cobble stone square, dug down a few metres. And boom Aztec temple.

And in Greece you have the problem that anywhere you dig is going to be an archeological site. So really you can't save it all.