Under the Forum Romano archaeologists have been digging, finding evidence of a royal palace dating to the founding of Rome (approximately 750 B.C.), leaving the Forum as a fairly recent monument by comparison.

Then just recently the archaeological team unearthed a funerary urn, predating the founding of Rome by two centuries or more. The tomb may be part of an entire necropolis, predating the founding of Rome (remember your Latin class story of Romulus and Remus and a she-wolf).

Lends perspective on the concept of ancient, doesn't it. Especially when you think of the history of our own country, not even two and a half centuries old yet and already threatened by ignorance and greed from within.