English: The excavation of Herulaneum, ca. 1929 (published by A. Maiuri; Ercolano. Rome-Novara-Paris. Istituto Geografico de Agostini, 1932, p. 16)

The photo documentation of the Herculaneum excavation, something that owes a great deal to the practices followed by Spinazzola at Pompeii, is used by Maiuri in his 1932 book to construct a progressive visual narrative of the rebirth or resurrection of the ancient town. The photo shows, snaking into the distance, the track of the Decauville railway with its bins full of debris.

In the foreground, to the right of the track, is a towering mound of amorphous compacted tufo. It is being attacked by four men using picks. On the top of the mound we see another man employing a pneumatic drill. A little further along on the right we see the first outlines of a building emerging from the tufo that has been broken up. The long lines left in the tufo by recent pneumatic drilling are visible. In the distance, beyond these signs of work, we see Roman houses which already have been excavated and restored. The edges of the excavation pit can be seen inthe far distance.