Imagine the other gorgeous rooms and their treasures just below their impatiently stamping feet.But as my friend at the Parco Archeologico di Pompeii, archaeologist Sophie Hay explains, contemporary excavation reveals the faults in the many diggings that came before, so it follows logically that the next work must be done by those who know better."We have a responsibility to future generations to leave unexplored parts of the city so they may apply technology to try to answer questions we cannot at present even dream of asking," she says.There is humility and grace in this decision, even though it of course rubs up against its natural opposite: the pride of one's own capacity.It is deeply human to feel that you know better There may be newer, smarter ways of getting there, but all knowledge, all decisions must eventually lead underground to that moment in time, and then to the very connecting act of preserving it and making it accessible to a ceaselessly curious public.The tools may indeed get better, but the critical thinking of the human archaeologist must remain