Help save Italy's Archaeology.

 
[caption id="attachment_2162" align="alignnone" width="640"] "French archaeologists at work 2015 Pompeii" by Jebulon - Own work. Licensed under CC0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:French_archaeologists_at_work_2015_Pompeii.jpg#/media/File:French_archaeologists_at_work_2015_Pompeii.jpg


To me, Italy is the place where the Romans were, the place where culture had its heyday in Antiquity. The place where Things Happened that I had to learn about in school even though they happened in a country far to the South of Germany - because they were so important. (The founding of Rome. The Roman Empire. Latin. Well, that didn't happen, that was spoken, but it was a huge thing for a long time.)

So you'd think that a place like that would be proud of its heritage, right? And take good care of it, including the archaeological sites? Well. That would be nice, but unfortunately, it's not true.

The Italian Ministery of Cultural Heritage is planning to cancel the Archaeological Heritage Offices, through a reform that will impact Italian archaeology, including rescue archaeology. This is major bad news - if anything, Italian archaeology needs more funds, and more support, and more action. Case in point? Pompeii, the world-famous site, has been crumbling for years and is in ever more danger of falling apart completely.

As is usual today in cases like this, there's a petition going on at change.org to make the ministers re-think their decision. It's still fairly new, and thus still fairly small. Please help make a difference and help save Italian archaeology by signing, and spreading the word - thank you!