I think one of the most interesting things we saw was more reconstruction. An archaeological architect took us through part of the site and showed us what he is doing. They are reconstructing part of this building. There was a long row of columns on either side of the street. They were three stories tall! Between the columns there were friezes (carved pictures) of different things. When you see Greek and Roman statues and friezes now they all look white, like the rock that they were carved from, but in ancient times they were painted. They plan to paint the freezes in this reconstruction so that it looks as close to how it was orignially as they can make it. 
While doing this they are learning a lot about building strategies and how things were done when these things were first constructed. There are also rules for reconstruction. To do it you must have 70% or more of the original material. This architect was able to tell us a lot about the techniques used in the 
reconstruction. He even walked us over to the place where they work on putting the big pieces together. Here is a picture of a lot of the pieces lined up. In some places reconstruction has been done that doesn’t look too safe now! He said thatthe reconstruction on the right was done when they didn't know as much and it is not safe. In an earthquake this reconstruction would not stay up because of the way it was done.There are two types of columns. One
is made of one solid piece of marble and the other is made of a series of drums. Look at this column that seems about ready to fall over! There is a big debate among archaeologists whether things should be reconstructed or not. Many of the reconstructions of the past have turned out to be wrong or were even wrong on purpose and they confuse the visitors to an archaeological site. However, if you are not an archaeologist it is hard to make sense of a lot of fallen columns. What do you think? Should things be reconstructed or should they be left as we found them?
