One always wonders which incredible books we lost, from amazing mysterious old philosophers. The burning of the library of Alexandria is such an incredible sadness
There's a very good reason for that: archaeological techniques improve all the time. The idea here is to leave something for future archaeologists.
In some places in Italy, Greece, Malta, probably others I don't know, people always joke that you shouldn't try to ever do any renovations lest you end up finding something and lose your house. Some places you're almost guaranteed to find stuff if you just dig once or twice.
https://www.museofaggiano.it/en/home/
And that's just one house in one city in one country!
Edit: I strongly recommend the museum, Lecce and indeed all of Puglia!
We've also been to Bari as well - which has a lovely old town as does Otranto - where the town centre is basically one large fortress.
One very pleasant surprise we had was using the Frecciarossa express train - we had two business class seats for a journey of a couple of hours and it was less than 50 euros and it was extremely comfortable!
- We stayed a few nights in an _Agroturismo_ near Cisternino that makes olive oil, our room was actually a _Trullo_ [1], a type of building typical of the area. There are many such places.
- If you want to see lots of Trulli in a picturesque town, Alberobello is beautiful but quite touristy. Still worth the visit imo.
- In Cisternino, they have these amazing restaurants (that is, if you eat meat) that are basically butcher shops where you choose the meat you want and they grill it for you. One of the specialties are "bombettes". The town itself is pretty.
- In Martina Franca, you have to try (again meat) "Capocollo di Martina Franca", which is like the Parma ham of the region. You can probably find it throughout Puglia, but the town is nice.
- Ostuni is a very beautiful white washed town.
- Lecce is well worth the visit, I can't really remember all the restaurants we visited, just one for seafood "Il Vico Del Gusto", we liked it a lot.
- Coming from Lecce but you can probably find them in other places in Puglia are the pastries "pasticciotto", which is a shortcrust pastry filled with custard cream, (sometimes they add other ingredients). Yum.
- Another typical dish of the region is the pasta "orecchiette con le cime di rapa", which is this ear-shaped little pasta with broccoli rabe, garlic, chili flakes, olive oil, and sometimes anchovies. Simple but very nice.
Hope that helps/convinces you to go!
You might be interested in The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, a historical novel about such a lost work.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/474030/The_Abbey_of_Crime...
We should only excavate what is about to be destroyed.
( And we shouldn't destroy stuff just to put up yet another shitty modern building. )
It's not a building.