Italy caps visitors to ancient site Pompeii

Rome, May 11 (IANS/AKI) Italy has limited the number of visitors to Pompeii amid concerns they could harm the 2,000-year-old city's priceless frescoes, according to officials.

The decision to allow a maximum of 15,000 visitors at a time during Sunday when entry is free came after an assessment of the site by inspectors from Unesco.

Pompei is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and according to experts, excessively high numbers of visitors risk damaging the frescoes due to increased moisture and 'micro-climate alterations'.

A record 35,000 people visited Pompeii on Sunday, according to Italy's culture ministry and archaeological superintendency.

When Pompeii's sumptuous, fresco-adorned Villa of Mysteries reopened fully to the public in March following two years of painstaking restoration work, Culture Minister Dario Francheschini said Italy was "turning over a new leaf".

Decades of mismanagement and neglect had caused parts of the site to literally crumble away, but Francheschini said Italy would meet a deadline to spend 105 million euros of European Union funds for restoration projects at Pompeii by the end of the year.

Once a busy commercial hub, Pompeii, near modern-day Naples, was devastated in 79 A.D. by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius that killed thousands of people and buried the city in six metres of volcanic ash.

The ash helped preserve Pompeii's treasures including artefacts and buildings almost in their original state, as well as the curled-up corpses of victims.

The first excavations of the site began in the 18th century, but even today only two-thirds of the 60 hectare site have been uncovered.

--IANS/AKI

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