这本插图精美，尺寸巨大的书介绍了美国摄影师威廉•威利（William Wylie，生于1957年），历时五年拍摄的照片。这些照片使庞贝古城焕发出生气，展示了一直在持续的恶化和保护循环。威利捕捉了庞贝城的前世辉煌，包括其兵马俑浮雕和壁画，同时还引起人们对活跃挖掘现场标志的关注，从玻璃箱中的石膏铸模到存储设施中的陶瓷碎片。他优雅的构图和对光影的掌控凸显了自然现象，污染和人为干预如何不断重塑这座城市。但是，这些照片中没有人。威利通过探讨考古遗址与过去维持的微妙的关系很好地记录了现在的庞贝城。

Handsomely illustrated and grand in scale, this book features images by American photographer William Wylie (b. 1957) taken over the course of five years. The photographs reanimate the ancient city of Pompeii, showing the ongoing cycles of deterioration and preservation that mark it as a living landscape. Wylie captures Pompeii’s former grandeur, including its terracotta reliefs and wall paintings, while also drawing attention to the signs of an active excavation site, from plaster casts in glass cases to ceramic fragments in storage facilities. His elegant compositions and command of light and shadow highlight how natural phenomena, pollution, and human intervention are continually reshaping the city. People, however, are notably absent in the photographs. Wylie beautifully documents Pompeii’s present by engaging with the tenuous relationship that the archaeological site maintains with the past.