| The science of archaeology began about five hundred | | | | archaeological discoveries was made in Egypt. This |
| years ago when many people found it profitable to dig | | | | was the finding of the Rosetta Stone, about which |
| up old marble statues and ornaments that had been | | | | there is a separate article. The Rosetta Stone was a |
| made by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and sell | | | | sort of "billboard," used in the years before paper was |
| them to rich noblemen. Most of these were found in | | | | made and when men had to carve their writings on |
| Greece, Italy, and islands in the Mediterranean Sea, | | | | stones or on tablets of clay. The Rosetta Stone had |
| which had been the centers of civilization for more | | | | the same words in two different languages. One |
| than two thousand years. Men began to study these | | | | language was Greek, which the scientists already |
| artistic relics, and found that they could learn from | | | | knew well. The other was ancient Egyptian, which they |
| them about the ways of life of other men who had | | | | did not know. From the Rosetta Stone they learned to |
| lived long ago. | | | | read ancient Egyptian. |
| Because this is such an interesting study, scientists | | | | Ever since, archaeologists have been able to read |
| became interested in man-made things from prehistoric | | | | whatever ancient Egyptian writing they have dug up, |
| times, even if they were not beautiful pieces of art. | | | | and this has helped them to learn much about the |
| Then, by accident, some farmers in Italy discovered | | | | history of Egypt and the people who lived there |
| that they were living on top of an ancient Roman city | | | | thousands of years ago. The Rosetta Stone was |
| that had been buried for more than sixteen hundred | | | | discovered in 1799. Many other discoveries were |
| years. The name of this city was Herculaneum. It and | | | | made during the next hundred years, but perhaps the |
| another city of ancient Rome, named Pompeii, were | | | | most interesting was the Altamira caves, in the |
| built beside a great volcano named Vesuvius. In the | | | | mountains of northern Spain. On the walls of these |
| year 79, an eruption of Vesuvius poured out so much | | | | caves are paintings of bulls and other animals that |
| lava and dust that both Herculaneum and Pompeii | | | | were hunted by prehistoric men. These paintings were |
| were buried. In the year 1719, archaeologists began to | | | | made by men who lived as much as twenty thousand |
| dig to uncover them. After more than fifty years, they | | | | years ago, maybe even more, but they are so well |
| had uncovered two complete cities with fine houses, | | | | done that many modern artists can admire them as |
| theaters, streets, temples, and everything else that | | | | much for their beauty as for their age. From paintings |
| showed exactly how people had lived in ancient | | | | like these, archaeologists find out how men lived by |
| Rome. | | | | hunting, and other things about the culture of that age |
| At the end of that century, one of the greatest of all | | | | so long ago. Archaeology goes on constantly. |