Editors’ Page: Contemporary Resonances

Baalbek looks delicious, I’m sure you will agree (see “Colossal Enigmas”). Makes you want to go there. But dismiss the thought. It is in the Beka Valley, home to 30,000 Syrian troops occupying Lebanon. Our author, an Israeli professor, has never seen the site he writes about so eloquently. Even before the Lebanese civil war and the occupation by Syrian troops, he would not have been able to visit Baalbek, because he is an Israeli. Let’s hope that soon peace will prevail and we will all be able to visit the site.

If Baalbek, which was once a major tourist site, is no longer accessible, the rest of the issue includes sights (from Pompeii) and a site (in Egypt) that only recently became see-able. The sights from Pompeii (Field Notes), we know, are going to shock some of our readers. They come from the newly opened exhibit in Naples of pornography from Pompeii. Should we have published these pictures? Our readers will decide. But aside from the pictures, the sexual standards that prevailed in Pompeii makes us realize how infinitely varied is the human condition. You may not like it, but, still, it was there. And if you are curious, as I am, you will want to understand the society that produced it.