"Join Gabriel Zuchtriegel for the ultimate behind-the-scenes look at Pompeii, the ancient Roman city that was tragically annihilated yet perfectly preserved in the year AD 79. As director of the archaeological park at Pompeii, Zuchtriegel's work brings him into daily contact with everything that was left behind when the city and its inhabitants were overcome by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. In this moving and intimate book, he makes sense of the latest discoveries while reflecting on his role as a keeper of this heritage. According to Die Zeit, 'Archaeology has never been talked about so vividly.' Pompeii has yielded extraordinary art, architecture, and artifacts ever since excavations first began in 1748. But recent years have witnessed a succession of important finds revealing the lives of people at all levels of Roman society, including a thermopolium, or snack bar, where Pompeiians got their takeout and a tiny storage room where three enslaved individuals, including a child, once slept. Zuchtriegel offers a fresh portrait of the beloved World Heritage Site as a cosmopolitan, multiethnic place challenged by rapid growth and socioeconomic inequality, connecting us to a past that is much closer than we think"--