EXCAVATIONS
The villa was originally excavated sometime between 1750 and 1765 by Karl Weber, a Swiss architect. He stumbled upon the buried villa while digging wells. The excavations used a system of underground tunnels to uncover the villa. Weber created very intricate layouts of the Roman villa, that proved to be extremely accurate.
The only problem with Weber's layout was discovered in the 1990s when the villa was further excavated. They found that it had two other floors.
In 2005, David Packard decided to sponsor the excavations and conservations of the villa. Quoted in an article in The Sunday Times, he said, "we have spent around two million dollars so far, much of it on conservation work." Many scholars are worried that the excavations are not being done carefully enough to preserve the artifacts and the architecture, but Packard ensure that this is not the case.
